RWBY: The D'arc Game of Life

by ThePlayer1Company

Jaune Arc has lived a quite normal life, sans his parents splitting up when he was 10. Regardless, he wants to be a Huntsman, a hero like his father! One day, he messes up in the best way possible, and a tiny splinter grows into a grand adventure, in which the blonde must play a dark game of life. Only time will tell the truth. RWBY/Gamer crossover

11. Red Sun over Paradise

8/22 at 1:30 PM: Starting the new chapter after my first day of college. It wasn't as bad as expected. I have high hopes for this semester, ^w^

Reviewer responses:

TheBleakGamer: Thanks for pointing that out, I forgot to change that part of it on my doc

Remzal Von Enilli: No, he killed her with a mortal kombat fatality-like move while fucking her in the ass

ZenithTempest: technically Adam is still alive... at least as alive as Jaune makes him. He's taken over Adam's identity. Also the harem is still up in the air. I'm considering it but I keep getting a mixed response. I might leave it up to a poll on my profile.

MysticSpider: No, that is not Chara. Chara is just a video game character. I mean come ON man, it's not like Jaune's power can make things from video games become rea-... oooooohhhhhhhhhh~. (XD but no it's not Chara)

Guardian54: Remember what you say here, sir. Remember it and be ashamed of it, and I will be ashamed of it too because I laughed out loud when I read it XD

GhostHornet: No, Ruby is a human, but she is a Silver-Eyed Warrior. Dark Warrior is different. It will be explained in this chapter.

Dark Durian: Well she had help from Jaune, mostly him artificially buffing her stats so she would be able to kill Grimm easier. She was level 7 and had ended up killing a few hundred Grimm with Jaune's help (mostly making them easier targets, though not really softening them up). My philosophy is that if you want to become a couple of levels above a Grimm that is, say, level 24, then you need to kill at least a few hundred of them. Marbel has killed that few hundred now, thanks to Jaune attracting more of them with Signal.

Saint of vice koncor: No there was no hacking, it was problems caused by the powerful entity inside Ruby getting agitated at Jaune's semblance affecting its home (Ruby's soul). More on this will be explained in this chapter.

Ruby's Fan: No, no I did not kill her. She is too precious to kill.

zen-aku the spirit of the wolf: Me rushing to get an omake done before the start of class. My brain gets weird when it's rushed.

NexusBladeguard: Oh man, I'm sorry about that, buddy. Here. *gives you a chibi Ruby, who applies an ice pack to your head, since she kinda doesn't understand medicine*

KizoAnimefan01: Huh, I was going more for shock factor, not scariness. Maybe I should try more... read before sunset.

Reader8916: Well, sir/madam, that is a hard question to answer. You see, most of the time, Jaune is just trying to be friendly. He has Yang and he doesn't want to make any other girls get the wrong idea, since he's taken. The problem with this is that he's very charming, despite that a lot of the time he doesn't want to be. When he sees that he's gained boosts in closeness, that's alright for him, but boosts in Flirtation when he's (from his perspective) not even flirting? That kinda weirds him out a bit.

The Smiling Crow: Good eye, sir. Yes indeed it is, as I happen to really like that character's line, as I feel it's-... *has looked it up and realized what it was* okay scratch the previous statement about liking the line. I was thinking it was said by the Happy Mask Shop Owner, for some reason.

Brandstone: Well buddy, you're in (possible) luck. I'm planning on MAYBE making this a harem story, but as of right now, Yang is in sole possession of Jaune's romantic affections. I might make hints towards things, but right now I'm mostly going to say "I'll leave it up to a vote"

ArtanisRose: You, sir/madam, I like. *gives you a pat on the back* I hope this chapter was up to your expectations of (and sorry if I'm making a false assumption on this, but I feel like you'd probably use this word) epicness. If it didn't, go ahead and just point out what I did wrong.

Alright, that's enough for now. Like I said to Artanis specifically, but I'm extending it to all my readers, if something doesn't seem write, point it out in a review or a PM. If it's something small, tack it onto the end. Use your own judgment to determine whether the flaws you've found should be in a review or a PM.

Now then, let's get to the chapter, shall we?

Story Arc 2: Playing Prometheus

Chapter 11: Red Sun over Paradise.

---

(Rose/Xiao Long Household, Jaune POV)

Your determination to restore things to the way they should be, combined with the purity of your heart and soul, has restored some functionality of The Game!

That was the first thing I saw when I woke up, the second thing was a field of gold. As I awoke more, I realized I was laying in a bed. I wracked my brain and shot up, hearing a noise of complaint to my side as my chest heaved.

I checked everything, literally! My fingers flickered through the air as I activated my Aura to boost my DEX to move faster.

Nothing appeared to be wrong, the only sign of what had happened was that Ruby now had the permanent status Blessed with Joy.

I sighed, then sat up in bed, only to feel a warm, soft weight at my side. I looked and realized that Yang was cuddled up to me, a faint smile on her face, but tear stains on her cheeks. It was obvious that, after what happened earlier, she probably only barely managed to even cry herself to sleep. She tensed at the shifting, and I sighed and kissed her forehead, laying back down and hugging her back. I felt her relax after a few minutes, and then slowly disentangled myself from her arms, replacing my body with a pillow. She didn't seem entirely satisfied, but it was enough. Though I loved her, I still had more pressing urges to attend to.

I located the bathroom and relieved myself, washing my face with a bit of water and Pluviteus' influence. I checked the time on my scroll, finding it to be just after eleven. Sighing again, I acquired a warm, wet cloth and returned to Yang's side, gently cleaning her face. When the stains her gone, I gave her cheek a gentle kiss and stood up again.

I let my eyes fall half-lidded as I channeled all of my Ki skills, with the exception of Adamant Foil and Radiant Mane, since both of those let off an external glow, especially the latter, which practically turned every strand of hair on my body fluorescent. Though I had incredible energy flowing through my body, I still felt the gentle aura in the house. My background music was even a gentle tune, though having so many skills active added a subtle acoustic guitar playing in the background of the track.

The music bloomed slightly when I saw Ruby laying on the couch, motionless and softly breathing in her sleep, growing a tad more energetic. Despite this, I frowned. Her face had been cleaned up and her clothes changed to pajamas, obviously thanks to Yang's sisterly care. I slipped into 'caring brother' mode and acquired a glass of water, returning to her and adjusting her positioning so her back laid across my lap. I gently lifted her up, one hand supporting her head.

With gentle motions, I gradually fed her the water, seeing her teeth with still stained with the blood and vomit. I sighed and focused a little more, dispelling my Ki skills and just focusing Aura into her. I didn't know what exactly I'd be doing, but my Aura and, more importantly, my Semblance had so far given me solutions or at least quests for things before.

I held Ruby closer as I used Pluviteus' power to swish the water around her mouth and clean it out. When I was done with it, I channeled my focus through the elements, using Crocea to turn the faucet on, then Pluviteus to make the water flow through the air. A tiny, gently glowing river ran through the air and into the glass, another ball of water delivering the dirty water from Ruby's mouth to the sink.

The entire time, I'd been using Gamer's Sight on Ruby, trying to find something, ANYTHING that would tell me what was wrong. I don't know how long I looked, but I found it eventually. Three things that began to explain what was going on.

Permanent Status: Darkened Warrior (High)
Description: The warriors of yore sometimes had to call upon dark powers to boost their own and gain the upper hand in their fights. This status represents that the afflicted as been infected by the Grimm in some way. From the High rank of this status, the afflicted has been infected by a powerful Grimm in a way that could be considered systemic. This status effect also inhibits the growth of followers of the light, and the more they follow the Light, the more inhibited the growth of their stats, Max HP, Max AP, and Max SP become. However, for followers of the darkness, this status boosts the growth of their stats, Max HP, and Max SP, but still inhibits their AP.

Effect: Inhibits stat growth by 50%, Max HP growth by 75%, Max AP growth by 75%, and Max SP growth by 75%. (ERROR: STATUS PARTIALLY DISABLED)

-/\-

Permanent Status: Silver Eyed Warrior (Low)
Description: Legends tell of warriors of yore who had eyes of piercing silver, hardening into the very steel they wielded against the forces of darkness. With eyes said to be blessed by god himself, under whatever name he may have been given, they were forces not to be reckoned with. They were said to be able to stop armies of Grimm with a single hard stare.

Effect: Boosts stat growth by 50%, (ERROR: STATUS MOSTLY DISABLED)

-/\-

Permanent Status: Soul wracked by chaos (Med)
Description: Trauma and/or loss of light in the afflicted's life has sent everlasting ripples through their soul. Inhibiting the growth of Lifeforce and Aura, this status can render even the greatest warriors into weaklings.

Effect: Inhibits growth of Max HP, Max AP, and Max SP by 60%

-/\-

I groaned internally, then slowly applied my elemental buffs to the unconscious girl. One by one, I saw the notifications inform me that her soul was practically weeping in agony, until I was done. It pained me to do it, because the whimpers of discomfort and pain she let out were heart-wrenchingly sad, but I knew it was for her own good.

When I applied the last buff, Mountain's Strength, I felt my consciousness fade.

---

I saw Ruby's petite form standing there, shivering in the wind. Ice formed around her as wind and water flared up from the circle that had formed around her. Next came fire, which incinerated the ice, followed by lightning and metal, both of which seemed to pull her shaking form apart, skin shifting like a collection of rose petals.

Finally, the earth came down and stilled her shivering. Six beams of light rose from the ground, coming together into a swirling rainbow that washed over her form.

I felt the temperature rise rapidly, and from the spectral downpour came two arms, clad in thick armor that seemed to have been forged from giant rose petals. It reached towards the center as crimson light flowed like blood through ethereal veins in the arms. Long, clawed fingers grasped the rainbow and pulled it apart like a curtain, revealing an angelic form with constrained wind for skin and rose petals woven into a robe, two wings spread from its back, appearing like white rose blossoms that had caught flame.

It opened its 'eyes', silver stars on its face that glowed with fire, and ice, and rage. It reached out for me, a melted mouth crying out in pleading as crimson energy filled its veins, wishing an agony to end.

I reached out towards it, azure arms too short to reach her, my fingers not long enough to grasp the splinter of red light that attempted to cross the gap.

It writhed as it moved slowly towards me, but then, as the mutated angel that was supposed to represent Ruby's soul screamed in agony, it shot back and my vision went dark again.

---

I awoke with a start, realizing I'd been holding Ruby close to my chest and she was now sitting in my lap. Our embrace was tight and close, and I felt a tear roll down my cheek.

QUEST RECEIVED!

Quest: Cast the shadows out.
Description: Ruby is affected by the status effect "Darkened Warrior (High)" and it is inhibiting her growth. Find a way to cure her before it takes over.
Objective: Cure Ruby's status effect "Darkened Warrior (High)" without psychologically damaging her or letting her die.

Rewards: Permanent maximum Closeness to Ruby and all that comes with it. Increased closeness to Taiyang Xiao Long. Increased closeness to Qrow Branwen. ?

Penalties: Ruby is taken over by Grimm energies. Ruby turns evil to support the status effect. Death of Ruby Rose. Maximum Un-Closeness to Ruby Rose. Lose Yang's love. Maximum Un-Closeness to Yang Xiao Long. Maximum Un-Closeness to Taiyang Xiao Long. Maximum Un-Closeness to Qrow Branwen. ?

I accepted in a heartbeat. I had to fix this. I was a hero, and saving their friends was what heroes did. It was practically one of the

I checked for anything else that had slipped out of my field of view and found a trio of windows.

You have 1 new message! (From: John Arc)

+5 Closeness to John Arc! (Total: +5)

+3 Closeness to Taiyang Xiao Long! (x40) (Total: +20)

I... wait a second, three times forty, and assuming it worked both ways...

I had been at -100 Closeness to Taiyang before.

God... fucking... dammit.

I checked the message, finding it to be my father informing me that he had finally gone out drinking with Taiyang and was working on alleviating the problems between the two of us. Judging from the notifications, it was working fantastically. I allowed myself a small smile at that, then stored my scroll away again. Taking a few moments, I weighed the pros and cons of various plans in my head.

The imagery of Ruby's soul I'd seen in that vision heavily hinted that the Grimm infection was in her blood. The fact that Beast's Blood had updated to include Dark Warrior had cemented that fact. I recorded the information in my Journal, along with a few possible solutions. I could try to use Alchemical Aura creating some sort of purification essence to cure it. I could try using my elementals to extract her blood, sterilize it, and put it back in, though that would be far more dangerous.

The insurmountable obstacle was one simple, but obvious fact: Ruby, as a normal human being, needed her blood to be inside her body in order to live. She wasn't like me and could recover from decapitation because wounds don't matter. I was the only one who could do that, as The Gamer, and unless I could mark someone as my Co-op partner, I was screwed out of any simple option.

Wouldn't that be so easy? Make Ruby my co-op partner, let her have access to Gamer's Body, and one little night's rest would have her cured with no risks or complications.

Except I'm pretty sure I wasn't allowed to have anything important be easy, what with my luck.

I sighed and gently moved Ruby off of my lap, gathering AP together and casting Charging Shine several times over itself, letting the new power coalesce and thicken until my mental math told me I'd end up driving the AP cost over my maximum limit. When I reached that sweet spot, I channeled that power into Regeneration and cast it on Ruby. It didn't increase the HP and SP regeneration of it, but...

Status Effect: Regeneration

Effect: +800 HP and SP regenerated per minute.
Duration: 4444m (3 days, 2 hours, 4 minutes)

It would keep her more than well-off in terms of both bars, leaving only AP to worry about.

I'd figure out a way to fix this. Ruby was Yang's precious little sister, and to me she already felt like a little sister, but I'd seen a couple of hints of maturity in her. I had a feeling she'd get into Beacon without any problems whatsoever.

For now, though, she needed to rest, and I needed to start getting ready.

I had work to do, as Jaune Arc, as Adam Taurus, and as a Huntsman.

---

(Eight'o'clock that day, Jaune's POV)

I looked at Banesaw, having donned my disguise as Adam and moved into position. It was easy to pretend to be angry, with my Acting skill.

Acting (Passive) Level: 12, Exp: 63.32%
The skill to take on a role in life not your own and play it well. Masters of acting have been known to be master manipulators.

+130% role immersion (20)
+52% character immersion (8)
+65% voice alteration (10)
+78% body language control (12)
+91% emotion fabrication (14)
+8% Master Convincingness (5)

It was free training, too, just pretending to be Adam. I'd taken up his role as the leader of the White Fang, and now had to take up his responsibilities.

"Ugh, of course. She was always the best at hiding, sad truth, so it'll be next to impossible to find her. Keep looking, give it two more days, then call off the searches. If she doesn't come back, and she's trying to hide from us, then we aren't going to be able to find her." I groaned and looked over the maps.

Banesaw let out a long sigh, "This is a lot of effort for one girl, sir. It certainly is sounding like things between you two ran deeper than a mere combat partnership."

"We've been working together since the days of the peaceful White Fang, of course we're close. People just... get like that. I don't want to repeat myself, Lieutenant, make sure they find her. If not, then... we proceed as normal." I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose, "For right now... just leave me alone. I might head out looking myself. Don't expect me back until tomorrow if that happens." I didn't ask for any understanding or confirmation that he heard me, just as Adam wouldn't have.

It was endlessly helpful that Acting gave me a large boost into my 'role immersion', because that boost gave me insight into how the role should be played. That information was incredibly important, because otherwise I wouldn't have had a fucking clue how the leader of a terrorist- sorry, a 'revolutionary' organization would act around his subordinates, or treat them for that matter. So far it was working, Banesaw didn't seem to have any clues that I wasn't Adam Taurus, or at least if he did, he was smart enough to not say anything about it.

I don't know why exactly, if he could sense Aura like most could. Then again, while skilled and strong, he was at a lack of any fancy tricks like super speed or a sudden assault of lasers, magical arrows, or fireballs.

Still, though...

Banesaw
Title: Risen from Darkness, with Teeth gleaming white
Level: 63

High physical stats, decent mental stats, he'd actually gone to a college before his identity as a faunus was revealed. Nearly got a PhD, if you could believe it. He was in his mid-thirties now, but still going strong thanks to Aura. Heavy facial scarring from an attack by a bomb loaded with acid and fire, though with no disfigurement of his eyes or nose. He was a snake faunus, boa constrictor to be specific, which explained his heavily muscled build.

I looked at him for a long time... he had abandoned all identity he had after the the chemicals he'd been assaulted with had basically sent him on a drug trip. He'd recovered, but not before killing three people with a chainsaw and getting locked up. A break had given him a chance to slip away. It was almost tragic, really.

He'd been assaulted unfairly, just from being a faunus. All of his previous friends had abandoned him, his university enrollment revoked even, and shit had just kept piling up on top of him until he'd caught word of the White Fang.

I nearly felt bad for him, nearly. I wouldn't kill him outright, he was forced into the White Fang by virtue of there being no other choice for him. His current position was due to the fact that he'd simply been very good at what he did and Adam had recognized that.

And now 'Adam' was making new plans for the man. He was beefy, some might even consider him tank-ish due to his high durability. I saw that as an opportunity.

As wonderful as being surrounded by pretty girls was (though my eyes were only ever truly on Yang), I could use someone who could tank hits. I was the next best thing, but most of my defenses and attacks were magical, while Banesaw was all physical. I hummed lowly as I looked at the tent flap, which lightly fluttered in the wind. I could use him, yes.

But would it be worth it? Would it be worth it to reveal most of my greatest secrets to an enemy? To someone who I wouldn't be sure if I could convince them to stand by me? If there was a problem, I still had the zeroth solution...

I could just kill him.

I didn't WANT to kill him, though. If I had to be honest, I'd like everyone to get their happy ending. Everyone.

Qrow reunites with his sister, and Yang with her mother.

Yang and I go steady, and go all the way, and she becomes a Huntress.

Marbel gets her kingdom and her Huntress license and becomes the queen she always dreamed of.

Blake earns respect from society as a faunus Huntress and moves the faunus far forwards towards equality.

Ruby gets cured of that Darkened Warrior status effect, becomes a Huntress, finds her knight in shining armor, and lives her life how she wants to.

The White Fang wins their fight and the faunus are given equal rights. They wouldn't have to fight anymore and they'd ensure safety and good life for their entire species.

My parents would get back together. There would be no more fighting and all of us could be a big happy family again.

Life would be okay...

...

...

...

... except that was fucking foolish.

---

(The next day, White Fang Alpha Camp, Jaune POV)

"Sir, we still cannot find her. I swear, though, if you just give me a couple more days, we will. I swear on my life." came Banesaw's expected words. I knew exactly where Blake was, protected and hidden in the Arc household, or on Eagle Mountain keeping the fort clean. Still though, I was Adam Taurus right now, not Jaune Arc.

I let out a low sigh, though the sound quickly devolved into a growl, "Forget it. Call off the searches. We can't waste time and resources on this any longer. I think it's time I return to Mistral and-" I was cut off by the sounds of gunshots, struggles, and combat outside.

Banesaw and I exchanged looks, then charged out of the tent, "WHAT IS THIS?!" I shouted in demanding, glad my voice control let me avoid a crack when I saw the sight.

Cinder Fall
Title: ?
Level: ?

Mercury Black
Title: The Quicksilver Butcher
Level: 68

Emerald Sustrai
Title: The Jade Thief
Level: 67

Cinder had returned... and slaughtered all of the White Fang troops in the camp, save for a few who had been spared simply because they had been knocked out.

Several things were not right here. Her level and title were no longer visible, meaning she was now at least above level ninety-nine. It had been only three days! I could only assume she had acquired some sort of artifact of power. I heard a siren call in my head, commanding me to kill her.

I couldn't. She had much higher stats now, I could only assume, and even if I unleased a quadruple barrage of five Gaster Blasters each, I was pretty sure I couldn't take her down in one hit.

She could probably take me down with one hit, though. Her physical stats had been in the high one-hundreds before, and were probably in the two-hundreds now.

I would shatter like glass under her fist.

"We could have gone to anyone for help." she said in mocking and I recalled Adam having said those exact words to her in their first meeting, "But we chose YOU, Adam Taurus." she threw her swords on the ground, confusing me briefly.

I was a bit shocked, "Because I'm a very valuable man." I said as if in revelation.

Cinder held my gaze, then stretched her arm out, an orange pattern on her crimson dress lighting up to bright gold as the swords caught fire, "Our plan will be beneficial for both of us." she smiled dangerously, then nearly snarled, "Or one of us." the emotion was reined in, the swords still burning, catching the grass alight as well.

Emerald and Mercury sat knelt behind Cinder, to either side. Both had cases, and I knew what was in them before they were even opened.

Storage Item: Safety Traveling Case
Contents:

Medium Air Dust Crystal (x1)
Medium Fire Dust Crystal (x1)
Medium Water Dust Crystal (x1)
Medium Earth Dust Crystal (x1)
Medium Poison Dust Crystal (x1)
Medium Ice Dust Crystal (x1)
Medium Metal Dust Crystal (x1)
Medium Lightning Dust Crystal (x1)
Dust Storage Canister: 1kg Light Dust (x2)

Storage Item: Safety Traveling Case
Contents:

320,000 Lien

I stared at the items offered to me, but Cinder spoke before I had more than a few seconds to consider it, "So, which will it be?" she'd been expecting the slower-minded Adam Taurus, not me. I had much more thought processing power AND a higher degree of decision-making skills.

Sadly, it didn't help a lot.

She could kill me and end the White Fang in all but memory if I declined, and that I couldn't allow. I didn't want to die.

And... I GUESS I could turn the White Fang around. I hadn't started on that yet, but I was going to be working on it in the coming days.

Still, this was a lose-lose for me, even if I didn't want it to be. I had no choice, "Fine. You leave me no choice." I sheathed Wilt and pointed at her, "But while this is compensation for a change of cause, I still expect compensation for the men you've killed, and the uniforms and weapons you've ruined."

"All in due time, Adam. All~ in due time~." she drew the words out like honey, walking forward and cupping my cheek. The warmth was intense, almost burning hot.

I grabbed her slender wrist and pushed her away, "No touching." I said simply, walking over to Emerald and Mercury and grabbing the cases, snatching them up and closing them. I took them both in one hand and pointed in the general direction of Vale, "Now leave, your human face is starting to sicken me. Send a faunus representative next time. Since you're going to be gathering some men for me, it should be easy to find one." I handed the cases to Banesaw, "I'll keep up my end of the bargain if you keep up yours."

Cinder bowed, smiling. She was either ignorant enough to believe I would keep my end of the bargain fairly, or confident enough that she could enforce her rule that I wouldn't be a problem.

Soooomethiiiiing told me that if she was ignorant, she wouldn't have reached past level one-hundred.

The trio left the camp, leaving me to deal with the dead and, in some cases, charred bodies.

When they were out of sight, Banesaw spoke up, "Sir, surely you aren't serious about this."

I sighed and rubbed my face a little, "I have to be serious, Bane, she'll kill us if I'm not. She can conjure fire with her mind, that's not a good person to have pissed off at you."

Banesaw sighed, "So... now we're under the thumb of a human."

I smirked slightly, "Not quite. I actually just had an idea. It's risky, but something tells me she doesn't have anyone's interests in heart except for her own. If we are trying to reform the kingdom's rule, then I think it's safe to say she would rather burn it all down and wipe the slate clean. We can't let that happen. We let the kingdom die, then the faunus will be stuck footing the bill for its reparations." my smirk had devolved into a snarl, before quickly turning back, "But what do you do to counter a destroyer?"

The man looked at me curiously, then set the cases down, "A protector... sir, you can't mean..."

I nodded, "Oh yes. That bitch is trying to fuck us, so we need to act like real men and fuck her right back. Brutal raping if possible, and that's why I'm talking about making a deal with the Hunters."

Banesaw shook his head, leading the conversation inside, "Sir, they would tear us apart."

I sighed, "Bane, we can trust those goody two-shoes Hunters to do one thing: Whatever they need to make the kingdoms safe. They had a lot of authority, as well. We bribe them with some peace, amass forces from Cinder's efforts, and give them information on who their real target is." I chuckled darkly, "We get them off our backs, get that fiery bitch thrown under the bus, and we get a massive step towards our freedom. Think about it, Bane, you could become a doctor." I smiled reassuringly at him, giving off a somewhat more friendly, almost brotherly vibe.

The man stared at me, then reached up to remove his mask, "I don't know if they'd let me into an institution like THIS, sir." he revealed his face to me. Vivid green eyes, short-cut black hair, and scarring over his mouth, revealing some of his teeth due to how the skin had been forced back by the burns.

I subtly equipped a pair of red contacts and removed my mask as well, looking into his eyes, "They'll have to, Bane. You and I will be heroes of society." I chuckled lowly, "Heroes don't get denied."

Bane sighed and put his mask back on, "You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become a villain, sir. We are far too old to be heroes."

I chuckled a bit more jokingly, letting an actual smile through, "Then we should embrace our inner children, Bane." my laugh was empty, hollow even.

The two of us shared a moment of morbid laughter, looking around at the dead bodies of the soldiers under us. I let the laughter die off, and Banesaw filled the silence, "We should bury them, and wait for the new ones to arrive."

I nodded, "Agreed." I almost began using Roimontagne to suck the bodies deep into the dirt, when I heard the low *k-chunk* of metal and saw Banesaw getting a pair of shovels.

I sighed, letting my hands fall from Wilt and Blush, and began working.

...

I patted the dirt down, having manipulated how much my shovel lifted from the ground with Roimontagne to lighten the work. It wasn't that hard, but it was tedious.

I didn't complain, of course, I didn't have the heart to. After days of being in the White Fang and listening to this group talk and work together, I'd realized that a lot of them had more sympathetic reasons to join than simply wanting to kill humans and force the government to give them what they wanted. Sadly, Adam's rule had changed those goals for the worse.

The new Adam would be different. I swore I would make it so.

QUEST RECEIVED!

Quest: Some much-needed polish.
Description: As the new leader of the White Fang, and with somewhat plausible deniability, you (as Adam Taurus) can turn the White Fang back on the path to good.
Objective: Restore the White Fang to its old days of non-violence.

Rewards: Maximum Closeness to Faction: White Fang (as Adam Taurus). +500 Closeness to Faction: Vale City (as Adam Taurus). Maximum Closeness to Blake Belladonna (as Jaune Arc). Maximum Closeness to Banesaw (as Adam Taurus). Possible sympathy from Banesaw (as Jaune Arc), possible alliance with Banesaw (as Jaune Arc). +40 Morality

Penalties: Possibly get usurped as the White Fang Leader (as Adam Taurus). -900 Closeness to Faction: Vale City (as Adam Taurus). Maximum Un-Closeness to Blake Belladonna, Yang Xiao Long, Marbel Mayston, Ruby Rose, and possible others (as Jaune Arc). Maximum Un-Closeness to Banesaw (as Adam Taurus).

I accepted it, "All this time I've been thinking with my heart, Bane. I guess it took losing Blake to see that my heart was in my chest, not my head." I sighed as I held the end of the shovel with both hands.

The raven-haired man shook his head, "Your heart and determination are what brought our people to our side, sir. Never lose that heart."

I shook my head, "Blake Belladonna stole my heart away and took it with her when she left. I'm going to think with my head now, Bane, but my empty chest cavity still pulsates with the passion for releasing my people from this living hell." I clenched my fist in front of my face.

I heard a hum of surprise, "I never took you for a poet, sir."

I let my hands fall to my sides, "Blake was more into that shit, but now that she's gone, I need to pick up the slack." I looked at Banesaw and smiled lightly, "Heh, I need to do some reading, think things through. I'm going to Mistral to talk with The Bard." I had had a chance to look through Adam's scroll, which held full-blown dossiers about two 'generals' that he had, one operating as 'The Bard' in Mistral in South Mistral, the other operating as 'The Troop' in Vacuo.

The Bard was a gull faunus woman known to the rumor mill as 'The Angel of Death' due to her love of using her ability to fly as a weapon all on its own. The Troop was a dolphin faunus who had been clipped of his back fin at a young age and had skin so smooth and waterproof it was said he was attacked with a molotov cocktail and the liquid fell off of his body before he was burned. It was improbable, but Adam had somehow found two people who were both joyously close to insane, and very skilled at their jobs. They had been appointed by Adam as recruiters and face-breakers. The level of their skills and their general attitudes were as far as their similarities went.

The Troop, named Naranja Tamas, kept a small group with him, about ten men including himself. He was jovial off the job but kept things professional when on duty. The Bard, Sierra Elise, had a huge group with her. She was a hardass, but took to her missions with the glee of a schoolgirl. Adam had specifically mentioned 'Don't let her get ahold of my scroll' in her notes, as well as 'Keep caution, don't know if she'll turn on me'. Naranja had the notes 'Laugh with him', and 'Keep track of his movements and purchases'

Looking over all of it again, I had decided to visit The Bard first, "She is dangerous, I do not understand why you keep her around. Even being a continent away concerns me with her.

I rubbed my face, "She attracts a LOT of sympathizers, something The Troop can't do. He keeps an extremely low profile, which is how he's able to keep his base of operations in an active warehouse. So many measures taken to ensure nobody finds out that it would take nothing less than his own semblance to find the hiding spots. Said semblance was something I found to be awfully similar to Gamer's Sight, but reading further I felt the description diverged from it. He had extremely keen sight, hearing, and sense of smell. It was listed that he fired a guy for drinking on the job... and had smelled the alcohol from across a parking lot.

Given that the scent wouldn't have traveled very far without the wind, I was pretty sure that meant his actual semblance was more akin to projecting his senses outside of his body. He could smell from a mile away, possibly, by attaching his sense of smell to a streetlight.

Alternatively, Sierra's semblance seemed to be the ability to create small amounts of subspace. She had a scythe disguised as a long walking cane, the blade of which was on a mechanism held inside a tiny pocket dimension. It was insanely powerful, but limited. It was reported she once made a single room to hide several people in for a surprise attack, but less than a few minutes later, she passed out due to Aura Exhaustion (a trait she had) and the people died because the room collapsed with them in it. The report said 'It's best to say they stopped existing'.

For all his lack of INT and WIS, it certainly seemed that the thirty-ish points he'd had were almost completely expressed in his bookkeeping and recording of his agents.

Banesaw didn't like her, which would make things easy. I could claim I was going to visit her, but in actuality just do it over Adam's scroll. Things were looking up for this situation.

I'd save time doing minimal work for the White Fang, and spend that saved time doing more important things. I ran out of the camp and towards Vale City. However, when the crimson flora had all but vanished from my sight, leaving only rich greenery, I removed my mask and colored contacts, then checked on everyone.

That involved stopping one thing.

Adam: Okay Ruby, Yang, please stop clogging the Text Chat with emoticons

Adam: Wait what the hell?

I looked at my profile, realizing that my listed name had changed to Adam Taurus. I looked around and found the notification.

SYSTEM UPDATE: Sufficient mastery of Acting and immersing yourself in a character's role has added the feature "Name Change"!

I hummed, then changed back, but not before seeing the latest message Blake: Is the game haunted?

Jaune: No, I just unlocked the ability to change my name. It automatically changed to Adam, which I guess makes sense because it's the only one I have besides default. I don't know why that would be important as a feature, but... it gives me an idea. There's a guy here, he's got a pretty sympathetic backstory as I've read, and I think I might be able to turn him to our side.

Marbel C: Jaune you can't save every goddamn person you meet. You lagged our Minecraft server back in the day because your ranch was absurdly huge. :C

Jaune C: Marbs, this isn't going to 'lag the game' or whatever, this is real life. Look what do I keep saying? I'm a Hero, and heroes save people, and I think this guy could be worth saving. He's super high level even though he doesn't even know his semblance yet. If I can-:C

Blake C: What guy? :C

Jaune C: Lieutenant Banesaw. :C

Blake C: Don't. Do not let him in. He's accepted his life as a murderous terrorist fully. He might seem civil but if he knew the truth, he'd turn on you faster than you could blink. I know, I saw him once cleave a man in half for telling Adam he wanted to quit. I know people can change, but... don't let him into the Game, it won't ever be worth it. :C

Jaune C: Fine, fine. I guess I was being a little too excited. :C

Yang C: Plus he'd totally ruin the vibes we have going on. :C

Marbel C: Yeah, and what would his purpose even be? :C

Jaune C: Tank? :C

Marbel C: PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT! Good one, Jaune. You're the Tank, buddy, and in a pinch so is Yang. :C

Blake C: Just get out of there or, better yet, kill Banesaw too. Psychos like him and Adam deserve a one-way trip straight to hell. :C

Jaune C: Blake don't be so murder-y, I let you onto Team Celeste for a reason. Don't betray that reason. :C

Blake C: A-alright... I just. I'm sorry, I'm still adjusting to having actual friends, and being connected with people, and... and being an opponent of the White Fang. :C

Ruby C: It's okay, Blakey! Jauney is doing what he can to make sure they don't get to hurt anyone! Right Jaune? :C

I turned on my camera and smiled at them all, washing my hair clean of the illusory dye, C: Right, Ruby. Don't worry, Blake. I'll put a stop to all of this. The White Fang will either be a force for good, or be no more when I'm done with it. :C I gave them a determined look, C: Now Ruby, Yang, I know you're really excited about all the cool things you can do with The Game, but please don't abuse the text chat functions or I'll have to take them away from you. :C

Ruby C: Nuuuuuuuu! Don't! Please~! :C

Jaune C: Then stop it with the smilies and stuff. :C

Ruby C: Got it, smilies have stopped! :C

Jaune C: And remember, don't tell your dad. :C

Yang C: We both get THAT very clearly :C

I smiled at them both, C: Nice. Now then, I think I'm going to do something I should have done a while ago. I'm gonna summon my Lightning Elemental. :C

Yang C: You need protection? I think Uncle Qrow's available, if you can contact him. He wasn't here today. :C

Ruby C: He was off on a super secret mission that he couldn't tell us about! He's like a super spy and it's SO cool! I wonder what he did? :C

Jaune C: I have as much clue as you do, Rubes. I'm going to take what I have and go get that elemental, alright? After that... I think my level grinding is sufficient, I'm probably going to meditate for a long-ass time and use my elementals. I have five of them, soon to be six, but I only have 12 charges to distribute among them. That's going to become only 2 levels each, and that's not good enough. :C

Ruby C: Yowza. Grind those skills, Jaune, you can do it! :C

Marbel C: We're gonna cheer you on for it, break your concentration and make something funny happen. :C

Blake C: I refuse to partake in this. :C

Yang C: You can do it~! I believe in you~! :C

I chuckled, Jaune C: Alright, alright, I'm going. I just need to get ready and changed :C I changed to my Normal outfit and began Sprinting towards Eagle Mountain, grinning slightly.

This... was going to be pretty alright.

---

(An hour later, Eagle Mountain, Jaune POV)

I hummed lowly. I hadn't yet summoned my Lightning Elemental for a simple reason: I wanted to explore the mountain and, more important, the rocky cliffs that ran up towards the peaks. I'd noticed earlier that they were formed in such a way that made flat surfaces on top of some of the walls.

With Power Jump, I easily leaped up the height of one of the rocky walls and landed on the pathway it made. I smiled and used Magic Eyes to further examine everything I could see from up here. I could see the trees down below, maybe about thirty feet. I could see the cave and where the doorway was. I could see a few ponds dotting the area, and I even could see, up ahead, a secluded pond. Humming curiously, I ran towards the pond.

Suddenly, however, I felt my toes catch on something and nearly got sent ass-over-head tumbling from getting tripped. I caught myself in a roll with Amazing Grace and my flexibility boost from Dancing, and smoothed out the stone with Roimontagne. However, I noticed something on the ground.

It was a large circle burnt into the stone, dark gray and looking fresh. However, Magic Eyes told Gamer's Sight something quite interesting, and Gamer's Sight then relayed that juicy information to me.

Magic Rune Circle: This symbol is permanent burnt into the stone, reaching down approximately 63 inches. The magic patterns inside it appear to be of both Earth and Lightning element. The wizard who did this must have been extremely powerful. Despite how ancient this is, it still looks fresh as the day it was made. A powerful resonance seems to call out from it.

My eyes widened at that last line, and I touched the center of the circle. I felt a sensation like oppressive chains being wrapped around my mind's hand as I reached into it. If I was right, then...

Bingo.

I pulled, clawing the stone apart with Roimontagne and saturating the air with my Aura as I carefully extracted the loose soul that had been stuck in the earth.

I examined it and touched the surface, and...

---

I saw azure light at my feet, unknown to my eyes, yet my mind knew it was me. I saw a body of orange and yellow positioned in the center of where the circle was. Down below, I saw green and gray, and a few colored figures fighting off black silhouettes.

I realized that the yellow and orange figure was me, or rather him, the man whose soul this was. The figures down below, they were his friends, one that was dark gray and blue with a sword and shield, one a vivid green-yellow and holding an axe, one a purple-red and holding daggers. They were adventurers, fighting what appeared to be Grimm with spears.

The wizard was gathering his Aura together to cast a very powerful spell, when suddenly a stream of black soared through the air, impaling his chest. I winced as he fell and all of his gathered Aura crashed down onto him with a mighty lightning bolt.

The lightning burnt the earth black and the man's body fell, his soul sinking into the stone as if being sucked into it. I saw the other colored figures dying off at the same time, before the vision faded to nothing.

---

I gasped as I came to my senses, looking at the soul in my hands.

Damned Soul (yellow and orange): A soul of a fallen hero. Doomed to eternal misfortune, it was cursed by accident to never pass to the afterlife. It's corona is colored unnaturally from its core, which is light green. It shines with yellow and orange light, emanating feelings of a bond to nature. It is mostly intact, due to having been trapped for the most part. It seems like you can see some parts of what this soul saw, if the vision from the rune near its cursed location is anything to go by.

Effects: Consuming this soul will grant +3000 Max AP, +2 INT, +1 WIS, +7 Earth Affinity, and +8 Lightning Affinity

I hummed, then put the soul in my inventory. I would have to see more on that later. For now, I went to the pond, seeing clear, calm waters.

Nothing out of the ordinary, as far as I could tell, except... hold on a second.

I dived down into the water, using Pluviteus to make sure I didn't drown. I swam down to the bottom, which seemed to be a cupped shape. There was bright blue peaking out. I used Roimontagne and unearthed it. My eyes widened a bit.

Giant Water Dust Crystal (30 lbs)

I rose to the surface, landing on the back of the pond and staring down at it, forcing the water to settle. It was almost beautiful, and I used Roimontagne to reinforce that beauty by hardening and slightly expanding the walls of the pond, turning messy formations of soft, waterlogged dirt into smooth, clean stone walls. I smiled and chuckled a little, then continued my walk.

I went around the perimeter while thinking about the vision I'd seen. I had seen the black figures start to retreat down into another area, and that area was the cave that I currently was using as a base of operations. If there wasn't a connecting tunnel, then... maybe there had been one in the past!

What was down there? I was curious, but what held my attention more was the fact that I needed a Lightning Elemental. It would be a relatively straight shot from the cave down into any subterranean caverns, after all. I didn't have to worry TOO much.

Settling into the Celeste Cave, as I just now decided to name it, I made a summoning circle and brought out a few Lightning Dust Crystals. This was it, my final elemental. I hoped it would be just as successful as the last for.

I focused my Aura into the circle, and just like before, I felt something pulling back.

Suddenly, my consciousness vanished, and I was out like a light.

---

Darkness

Darkness

Darkness

Redness

WHITENESS

Darkness

Darkness

Darkness

Darkness is all I know, until that energy brings me the light.

I burn like fire for moments at a time.

I only know life briefly as the energy flows through me.

Then, suddenly, life blooms through me like an explosion.

The energy flows INTO me!

Into my SOUL!

I feel my soul swell in size as countless years take place.

Each year passes in an instant, before I know it I stand up.

I stand from the mud and reach out into the world.

I feel my energy grow as I do.

I feel... feelings.

Taste, touch, sound, sight, smell.

I begin to identify.

This energy, it is what lets me grow.

What lets me change.

What lets me evolve.

It is still present, in the creatures around me.

Big or small, animal or plant, they too have it.

However, they merely adopted it.

I was born with this energy.

I was molded by it.

Suddenly, my perception explodes.

It spreads to all of mankind and all the sky.

Through all of nature and the seas.

Through the ground and the core of the earth.

I am the blood of the storm and the signals in bodies.

I am energy and I am in all life.

I fuel muscles and wires to make motion and light.

I make heat and wind, used to power any device.

Used to power the original device as well.

Used to power life itself.

I realize now as I see through all things.

I am lightning

I am what lets things grow.

I am the energy that inflates the souls of mankind.

I am the energy that makes storms so deadly.

The sky weeps millions of tears and strikes down with anger.

I am that lightning too, pushing the sky aside.

The sky bellows in protest as thunder.

I am the lightning in dynamos and generators.

Powering technology held so dearly by mankind.

I am lightning and I can be captured.

But if I am given an exit...

I am gone in an instant...

I am lightning and my name is Juristimunja.

I am... Juristimunja.

I feel myself break away from a whole.

But... I am merely a piece...

A piece of an even MORE glorious whole.

I am a splinter of a tree.

It is fully colored now, and I will help it grow even more powerful.

As it grows stronger, I too shall grow even stronger.

I am Juristimunja.

I am lightning.

My energy is infinite.

I am Jaune Arc.

I am human

My soul is eternal.

I am... one.

---

I felt my perception return to my body, but everything was dark. I stood in the middle of infinite darkness, awash in only the light at my feet.

I looked down to see a circle with near-infinite detail, with six points reaching out. Each one was marked with patterns both unique to them, yet still so common. It was hard to look at. It HURT to look at. I looked at the center of it, which was glowing with pure white light.

I was compelled, I knelt down and touched the symbols with my hands. Instantly, I felt like my soul was being torn apart. I could sense splinters burgeoning out from its surface. I saw the arms of the circle start to glow with all the colors of the rainbow, and I noticed that the patterns... they all made sense suddenly. I was slightly shocked, trying to think of why, but my brain felt like it was completely opaque to my will to think and understand. Veiled completely in darkness.

I saw one arm start to light up with purple energy. Metal. From the smaller circle at the end of it came metal. It coalesced together and formed Crocea the Elemental. He looked at me with that familiar face. A perfect mirror of myself, except in almost complete silvery coloration. He was slightly colored, his hoodie tinted black, his skin tinted with a peachy tone, his hair tinted gold, but his eyes were perfect, vivid lights, glowing azure with what I could only assume was incandescence.

Next, the arm to his right lit up red. Fire. At the end, flames rose from the circle and Xiburichu formed. A short man, skin like a smooth sheet of orange flames stitched into a perfect human shape. A corona of golden fire around his orange form, his eyes glowing azure just like mine, their color brought out all the more by the redness surrounding them. He was bald, but for a few wisps of reddish-gold fire.

Next, the arm across from him lit up, glowing with green energy. Air. A miniature tornado rose from the circle at the end, and Mystral coalesced from it. She was small, her body no more than two feet long. Her form was faint, hollow in the center, like she was made of glass that was only painted on the edges of each face. Blue wisps of wind, some tinged gold, some tinged purple, coalesced together, swirling and forming a small blue dragon with darker scales dotted among the normal ones covering its lean body. Between two frosty horns was a mane of lavender clouds. Her wings were tinged yellow, lightning faintly arcing between bones of wispy clouding.

Then, back across the star, the arm next to Xiburichu's lit up with orange energy. Earth. Pebbles and rocks and huge chunks of stone rose up from the circle at the end, coalescing into Roimontagne. He was the tallest of us, about 6'8", with a rough, crown-like carving on his forehead that had a tiny diamond and two tiny sapphires set into it, arranged in a small triangular pattern. His eyes glowed as two azure crystals. His body rose up under his bald head, all of it very rocky and rough. His lower body simply melded into the ground, like a slime beast made of rocks. He was buff and very stocky, which went well with his great stature and greater strength.

Across from him, the arm between Crocea and Mystral began glowing with blue energy. Water. Droplets came from he circle at the end, then a wide river flowed directly upwards and outwards, forming Pluviteus. It was impossible to tell the gender of the creature that appeared from the water being sucked into the cave. Its body fluctuated, looking almost whitewater from a hose. It formed a thin, river-like torso and two buff arms, with thick forearms and huge hands and fingers. Its lower body simply turned bottlenecked into a thin rivulet, which dripped as it floated almost like a ghost, body hovering in the air and not touching the ground directly. Azure energy glowed atop it as its head formed, a slicked-back head of 'hair' made of orange seaweed. Its eyes opened up like two concave holes scooped out of its face, tiny stars of azure like glittering moonlight on the ocean waves. It opened its mouth, another concave hole that was wide like the maw of a beast.

Finally, I looked towards the last arm, unlit and colored a dull, lifeless gray. The other elementals all looked towards it too, and began speaking in a chaotic cacophony of clangs and rasps, of crackles and gouts, of gusts and whistles, of clunks and crunches, and of waves and babbles. I felt like the noise was invading my head, threatening to drive me insane.

Then, they all went silent as the yellow energy filling the last arm reached the end. From it, there was a crackling, then a small burst of thunder as lightning struck upwards from the ground. A new figure stood there, the figure of Juristimunja. It was the simplest of my elementals, two long, thin whitish-yellow bolts for legs. Two long, thin, whitish-yellow bolts for arms. Its torso was a long, slightly thicker bolt of azurish-yellow lightning, with a heart shape in the middle. Its head was a ball of lightning with a few thick arcs wriggling at the back, coming together like a long ponytail. Three azure eyes opened up on its face, one on the left and right and one in the middle. A thin, smiling mouth formed below the eyes. When she was fully formed, her 'heart' started beating, sending small pulsations through her limbs, making them swell and contract slightly.

She was about 6'5", I measured, and featureless but for her somewhat feminine figure. She looked directly at me, her thin smile now emitting giggles as she made a motion to cover her mouth. Her giggles were like static shocks and the buzzing of electric currents, "I am Juristimunja. You and I, we were meant to be."

"Meant to be?" I was confused. I was more confused than anything in my life. I felt like every single point of my WIS had been drained away, preventing me from understanding anything.

... wait...

That was it!

Suddenly, as soon as that thought passed through my head, I felt the swallowing blackness covering my mind crack in the center. I was so close to... SOMETHING... and so I did as any wise fool would do...

"Please... help me to understand." I begged of them all.

They all raised their hands as far upwards as they could go. Just as I'd seen with Yang and Ruby, six beams of light, all the colors of the rainbow, shot out of the elements. All the colors of light coalesced into a rainbow above me, and then washed over my form. It banished the darkness in my mind and let it see the light.

It washed over and colored my soul, and let me see the truth.

---

Light, so much light.

The light divides.

The blood of the earth, metal.

The willpower of nature, fire.

The breath of the storm, air.

The flesh of the earth, earth.

The flesh of the storm, water.

The blood of the storm, lightning.

The rainbow shines over all of the world.

I see darkness as metal, but feel the blood of the miners approaching.

I see the earth torn apart but for a goal to find metal and crystals.

I feel their sweat fall and mix with the dust, and they drink.

I feel the fire raging to melt the metal, making it come undone.

Beaten into strength.

The beginning of something new.

I feel lightning flow through metal and crystals and nerves.

I feel the air whip and blow and be pushed aside by everything.

It persist, though.

It enacts its will.

Fire and heat fill the sky as the sun shines.

As mountains explode as volcanoes.

The water cools and soothes the volcanoes' raging.

It soothes and forms earth.

The earth holds everything up and together.

The sand at the bottom of the sea.

The dirt under the trees.

The stone that makes the mountains.

And the snow atop the mountains is but frozen water.

The water melts in the sunlight and flows down, making rivers.

The rivers flow and feed themselves to the plants along the way.

The plants form from the elements too.

But they lack two things.

Ironic, really.

That the master's inception and termination in this quest...

Was of both things lacked by nature and granted to mankind.

Metal and Lightning.

Endurance and Energy.

Filling up human souls and giving them what they needed.

To not just be natural, but to go beyond.

To imagine.

To create new things.

To be... UNnatural

And in the wake of such success...

The elements of metal and lightning...

They were fed unto nature to make it grow too.

To make the cycle better.

To make things become greater through the circle of life.

With a stable structure, not prone to squish.

The hexagon of life.

Purple, Metal.

Red, Fire.

Green, Air.

Orange, Earth.

Blue, Water.

Yellow, Lightning.

These six colors, the rainbow.

The rainbow that blesses life.

And now that rainbow is in your hands, master.

You now wield the reins over all the elements.

I am Crocea Mors and I am Metal.

I am Xiburichu and I am Fire.

I am Mystral and I am Air.

I am Roimontagne and I am Earth.

I am Pluviteus and I am Water.

I am Juristimunja and I am Lightning.

You and us.

We and you.

We are all one.

I am Jaune Arc and I am Human.

My endurance is infinite.

My willpower is infinite.

My breath is infinite.

My strength is infinite.

My life is infinite.

My energy is infinite.

I am colored completely.

My soul is eternal.

And it is colored with all the powers of the earth.

I am Jaune Arc.

I am Crocea Mors.

I am Xiburichu.

I am Mystral.

I am Roimontagne.

I am Pluviteus.

I am Juristimunja.

I am... one.

---

Acquisition of a Basic Lightning Elemental has increased your Lightning Affinity by 10!

Increasing your understanding of the world through the eyes of the elements has increased your WIS by 2!

Summon Elemental's level increased by 4!

By summoning an elemental for each of the six elements, you have earned the title "Wizard of the Elements"

Understanding the patterns of mana and the elements has granted you the skill "Runecraft"!

I barely opened my eyes, my mind aching as it processed everything around me into feelings. There were blind spots, of course, but even for Gamer's Mind, it was a more than a little difficult.

My WIS was only 100, not 101 like I'd expected. I hummed softly, looking around as I opened my eyes, checking the stats on the new title.

Wizard of the Elements: Granted for summoning an elemental for all six elements. Grow your power and continue deepening your connection with nature. Effect: Doubles boosts granted by elemental buffs. +100% Ease of Casting elemental skills. Can imbue neutral Mana spells with one element.

I chuckled softly, then sat up. I was one WIS point short of the boosts I'd get. I was quite the stubborn player when it came to games that gave you stat points AND allowed you to 'exercise' your stats. However, as all six of my elemental friends informed me, I need to take the final step myself.

So I put a point in WIS.

By raising WIS above 100, you have achieved new heights!

Raising WIS above 100 has granted you the skill "Magic Doodle"!

Raising WIS above 100 has granted you the skill "Pathfinder"!

Raising WIS above 100 has granted you the skill "Wizard's Stream"!

Raising INT and WIS to great heights has granted you the class "Wizard v3"!

Raising INT and WIS to incredible heights and proving yourself worthy of power has granted you the item "Platinum Amulet"!

I tilted my head slightly at that last message. I didn't quite understand it. Why would I...

Wait a second...

Platinum Amulet
Description: A masterpiece necklace with the Double Crescents symbol of the Arc family engraved on a small, intricately-decorated platinum medallion. The medallion is hung on a necklace of decorated ebony wood beads. It gleams with great magical power.

Effects: +25% magic damage, +50% ease of casting, +5 INT and WIS when worn. Boosts Aura by 20%

Tier: Conditional complimentary starter item v4 (INT and WIS)

Huh... I guess that changed, then. I had had a theory that if I'd completed the prologue by raising my stats above the threshold, then I'd be given a fourth-tier starter item. Sadly, unlocking the Charisma stat had denied me from confirming that theory. Now, I suppose, since I had over one-hundred in the stats of the item I'd been granted, then I was eligible for the game to-

Congratulations on getting over 100 in INT and WIS! Since those stats were your primary stats in your starting build, The Game has granted you the 4th version of the item you would have gained during the prologue!

Huh... I stood up and looked into my inventory. I removed the amulet and looked at it. The medallion, as the description had stated, was engraved with small patterns that I recognized to be the patterns of the elements. Above the crescents was Metal, below them was Lightning. I noticed that the pattern, oddly enough, continued through the beads. The four elements fire, water, earth, and air were on the front, back, and left and right sides of the beads, while metal was on the top and lightning was on the bottom. Odd. Then again, I'd hypothesized that the Arc Family had something of a hereditary passing-on of Metal and Lightning affinities. Metal for the knight and paladin motifs many past Arcs shared, and Lightning for the incredible size of their auras.

Funny enough, I had ended up with the stat build to gain a huge amount of Aura without even thinking about it most of the time.

I checked the skills, finding that Magic Doodle, oddly, allowed me to combine two elementals into a Dual Elemental, controlling some... new element? It was hard to figure without actually doing it. Pathfinder hinted that other people had information-based semblances, like what I'd read about The Troop and his high level of sensory power. Wizard's Stream was the WIS equivalent of Wizard's Pool, granting me increased APR instead of Max AP, just like WIS increased my APR instead of my Max AP.

Overall, despite the simplicity of the skills at base, the implications were incredible. I might be able to combine three elementals, or four, or five, or all six of them into one... Megazord Elemental thingy. For Pathfinder, I could gain some sort of extrasensory perception, or telepathy, or be able to read people's emotions more accurately, or even get a minimap! THAT would be useful. For Wizard's Stream... if I could increase my Max AP by using AP with Wizard's Pool, then I could increased my APR by regenerating AP with this.

It would be like APR itself was a skill.

I grinned. This all had been amazing. Even if I was still lacking DPS, I had more tools to work with, and more APR to fuel my actions.

Wizard v3 had increased the APR boost from 100% to 150%, driving my minutely APR to over twelve thousand. Runecraft let me make runes that were aligned to elements and increased their power. The latter would be useful when combined with the skill I'd stolen from Cinder's dress.

Dust Weaving (Passive) Level: 1, Exp: 0.00%
An age-old technique involving imbuing threads of cloth with Dust and weaving them into clothing. While it can be used by anyone, it is best made by those who understand the patterns of the elements. Effectiveness and power of woven Dust increases with skill level.

Allows imbuing of dust into threads.
Allows weaving of Dust into clothing and some armors.

I smiled. I had some work to do. I'd been using normal, un-magical clothing for too long, and it was time for an upgrade.

...

Well... I was glad I tried this on a normal hoodie, instead of my more stylish ones. Just because I had the dexterity and the precision to weave clothing didn't mean I had much of the skill. Luckily I had a Tailoring trade in my list of Crafting Trades, so I hadn't done TOO badly.

Still...

Fiery Hoodie.
Description: A black hoodie with flame patterns along the cuffs, tail, shoulders, and the mouth of the hood. It has been woven with Dust to enhance its abilities.

Defense: 1
+10% effectiveness with Fire magic.

The patterns weren't the best, but that was to be expected. I got a level out of that craft, though, so I had a good feeling about training this skill up. Still, since I couldn't get anything better at the moment, I just equipped my Ferromagnet hoodie, which had been woven with, as the name somewhat hinted, lightning and metal Dust. I put on my armor and equipped Crocea Mors to my side. Humming, I took out two Dust crystals.

Ice and Poison Dust, those were the two I'd received from case Cinder had delivered, as well as two canisters of Light dust. I quirked my mouth as I thought about the implications of these two. What would I gain from using them with Soulforge? Could I manipulate my elementals to make a Poison or Ice elemental? I still hadn't used Magic Doodle, so I didn't know the effects of it. I hummed as I thought about what could make what. It could be useful, in some cases.

I decided to start with what seemed obvious, summoning each of my elementals in kind.

First thing first, I combined Roimontagne and Xiburichu. The latter seemed to phase into the former's body. Suddenly, flames burst from the cracks between the stones of Roimontagne's body, and his crystal eyes both shattered into a dozen pieces. His form melted into lava, huge chunks of volcanic stone forming amidst the glowing orange molten stone. The new form stood about 6'3 and had two dozen glowing shards of azure crystal for eyes. I whistled lowly at the handiwork, then moved to the next to.

Pluviteus swallowed Mystral whole, then a mist rose from the surface of his skin. Suddenly, his form expanded and hardened into chunks of ice in a rough, but intimidating dragon-like shape, a longer, snakier kind than a normal drake, like Mystral. I believe it was called a wyrm. The glowing stars and sparks of their eyes spread into large glowing lights held behind a thin, clear layer of ice. A pair of sleek wings formed from snow and slush on its back, and four wicked icicle claws tipped each toe of its four legs.

The next process was simple, Juristimunja simply hugged Crocea Mors and phased into him. Small spikes formed along his arms as his body came undone, reddening a bit from the heat. Two concave dishes formed, filling with azure lightning for his eyes as his teeth sharpened and his clothes vanished, replaced by a smooth, flawless skin of steel. His legs shortened as he began floating a few inches off the ground. His skin melted away from his chest, revealing magnetic rings of a ribcage formed around his spine. He laughed like thunder booming through a metal tube.

Roirichu, Pluvistral, and Crocea Munja, as I named them for simplicity's sake. They echoed with power. Lava, ice, and magnets, it was impressive.

I split them apart again, trying a few other combinations. Crocea Richu was a short, muscular man made of molten steel, and seemed to be better at forging things. Roimonstral was a fat dragon carved of sandstone, and was better at manipulating, of course, sand. Pluvimunja seemed to simply be a sleeker-bodied Pluviteus filled with bolts of lightning in place of bones. Though the exact effects were unclear, she was capable of making steam and directing lightning bolts through streams of water, as well as make miniature versions of herself.

After that, I changed up my strategy, going for a 'one for all'.

Crocea Munja was a magnetic elemental, Crocea Richu seemed to be a smithing elemental, so I moved on. Crocea Pluvis looked almost the same except for a sludgy rust covering every inch of his body, dripping off of him occasionally. Crocea Myst was much the same, except with dry rust covering his body like flaky scales, some of them chipping off his skin with every motion. Finally there was Crocea Montagne, who seemed to be some sort of 'ore' elemental, with a golem-like body riddled with gold, iron, copper, tin, and aluminum. He seemed to be incredibly strong, which wasn't too surprising. His eyes were like jewelry, azure crystals set into bright silver sockets. I smiled. Crocea had a couple of good combinations.

Roirichu and Crocea Richu had already been seen, so I moved to Xibuviteus, who formed a body of bubbling water and steam. His head and heart were glowing with fire and water, and scalding steam curled into a thick body. It could find some use, but it wasn't the most effective. Xibustral seemed to form a long, serpentine dragon out of smoke and fire, fire as its eyes and smoke as its scales... looking at it, he almost seemed to be an explosion held into the shape of a dragon. Finally, Xibumunja formed the semi-defined figure of a woman with a wiry, but muscled frame. Everywhere she touched was like a welding torch turned up to 500%, slagging stone and turning wood to smoke in seconds.

Roimontagne and Pluviteus came together to form Roimonviteus, who appeared to be an actual slime-beast made up mostly of mud, but I found that he could also control concrete to some degree. Roimunja seemed to be made of a lot more crystals, which formed rough spikes on his arms and arced with electricity from his shoulders down to his fingertips. He seemed to be able to control crystals to a better degree than Roimontagne alone could.

Roimonstral, Xibustral, Crocea Myst, and Pluvistral had already been seen, so the only combo left for her was Mystimunja, who turned into a tiger-sized dragon with a tiger's tail and legs, which confused me a bit. Her body hummed with a quiet rumble, every movement's sound exaggerated a hundredfold, maybe a thousand-fold. She seemed to be some sort of... thunder tiger, I guess. I thought back on what had been revealed to me in the 'joint' summoning reveal.

Each of my elementals had been influenced by my surroundings and experiences about at the times that I summoned them.

Crocea Mors, the Yellow Death. He was named after the sword wielded by the Arc Warriors who had proved themselves worthy of the title of hero. I had wanted to prove myself by unlocking my Aura on my own.

Xiburichu, the Western Sunrise. He was named as such because I summoned him when Yang and I were still in the early stages of our friendship. She was of Vacuan blood and her name meant Sun, so the name of my Elemental had been influenced thusly.

Mystral, the Cold Wind of the East. She was different, a bit odd in fact. I had used a skill to boost the 'air' sacrifice for her summoning. It was during that brief, confusing period of time when I'd first met Blake, who Gamer's Sight told me she was of Mistralian blood, and I was thinking heavily about Yang and I in a relationship. The skill I'd used, Azure Dragon's Chilly Breath, was used by the Azure Dragon of the East, who supposedly helped build the whole kingdom back up from the brink of destruction. He had moved from Vacuo, AKA Yang, to Mistral, AKA Blake. Thinking on it properly, I realized that, if only for a few brief moments, I had thought about replacing Yang with Blake. My head had calmed and thankfully I hadn't done such a foolish and disgusting act. Yang was too precious to be replaced.

Roimontagne, the King's Mountain. He was named as such because of Eagle Mountain, and my past being the 'king' of a 'kingdom' on top of said mountain. Of course when I was eleven and twelve, that was all just pretend, but I'd remembered it before summoning him. He was the king of the mountain because of my dream to be the king of the mountain.

Pluviteus, the Orange Rain. I had found the old orange tree Marbel and I liked to eat from when we'd gone camping here with our parents. Much simpler than my other elementals, she had formed like she had because of both my sacrifice of oranges and the fact that it had begun to rain during my meditative state forming her.

Juristimunja, the Storm of True Lightning. She had been the final piece to the puzzle, my last elemental to complete the set and bring me to a higher state of balance and harmony. Through her, I had learned more about the truth of nature and the way the six elements made up the world. Magic Doodle helped me mimic those combinations of the elements, if only by a small amount.

I grinned. Not only all of this, but my levels for Mana Affinity and Nature Affinity had received a huge boost from my 'balance' of having all six possible elementals. My APR was now over a quarter of my AP ever minute, and that was before the boost from Wizard v3. I was currently raking in almost 17k Aura every minute because of these boosts.

Naturally, I decided to put them to good use.

...

A stiff breeze blew past my ears as I carved the tunnel down into the bowels of the mountain. When I'd gone down about half a kilometer, I sensed dangerous presences at the end of the range. I was tempted just dig straight down, but Minecraft had taught me that that wasn't a good idea. Lava or massive drops aside, if I made a sheer drop, I'd need to fly to get back up. The problem was that, from what I'd seen in the vision, the Grimm that the adventuring party had fought all had wings.

Suddenly, however, I was interrupted by a message.

Marbel W: Hey Jaune, where are you? I thought you'd be training, but um... I need some help. :W

Jaune W: Where are-... wait, you're incredibly close. Why are you here? Shouldn't you be in school? :W

Marbel W: Someone thought a good April Fool's prank would be to drop smoke bombs in the ventilation shaft. Not only is the school closed until they clear everything out, it also stirred up a ton of spiders and rats, so exterminators are coming in. It'll be until Monday before they're done. Are you inside the mountain? :W

Jaune W: Yeah. Hey, wanna come help me kill subterranean Grimm? :W

Marbel W: What do I get if I do that? :W

Jaune W: I'll get you a new scooter and some new clothes or something, plus it's EXP. Anything for EXP. :W

Marbel W: Anything for EXP... dammit Jaune! Exploiting my weaknesses... *grumble grumble* :W

Jaune W: Hehehe, come on, get your short ass down here and watch me dig with my Elementals. :W

Marbel W: Fine, fine. I'm coming. :W

I ceased my tunneling and looked up, focusing my Aura to light up the cave with Xiburichu.

A few minutes later, I saw Marbel in the distance, sliding down the stone path on a sheet of metal. I winced slightly, but it was just common steel, nothing to cry over. I slowed her down with Mystral and Crocea, smiling and giving her a small hug when we were level, "Hey Marbs." I chuckled as I continued tunneling.

"Hey Jaune. So where're the Grimm?" she asked as she looked at the end of the tunnel.

I checked my senses again, "About four hundred more meters down. Don't worry, we'll get there in no time." I smiled at her and redoubled my digging efforts.

Marbel hummed softly, "So hey, uh... I have a question. I studied a whole bunch and did some meditation like you taught us, but... I think it'd be really useful if I had something more than just quick movements and stabby stab." she gestured to her dagger.

I chuckled, "Yeah, stabby stab is useful but it gets old. What were you thinking?"

As I looked down at her, she seemed to shrink in shyness, "Um... actually, my idea was that maybe... s-since you see to have all of the elementals... and you're kind of an expert on this... maybe you can help me get an elemental? Maybe also help Blake and Yang and Ruby too?" she seemed to shrink back a little more, and her tone suggested that the four girls had talked about this among themselves.

I sighed softly as I looked at her, "Having an elemental isn't just something anyone can do. I trust you know that?" she nodded, "Alright. I'll see about maybe doing that after we clear out this place of the Grimm. For now, here." I boosted Regeneration fifteen times over and cast it on her, giving her what looked like 6378 minutes of the buff, which translated to about 106.3 hours of being buffed, or almost four and a half days. I waited for my Aura to regenerate, finding it returning after just a couple of minutes. I smirked.

My stacked buffs were OP.

Speaking of buffs, I also took the time to cast the other five buffs on Marbel, as well as all six on myself. I had found that the EXP gained for re-upping a buff on someone was reduced by a percentage proportionate to the time left in the buff. Re-upping it after only a few seconds would mean I'd get almost nothing for it, but re-upping it when there were only a few seconds left would mean I'd get almost the whole amount for it.

It sucked, because that meant I couldn't level them up by spamming them, I had to actually properly buff someone. Still, they were useful irregardless, and topping off the timers didn't hurt.

I resumed tunneling, going faster this time. I twisted the tunnel around subtly, making sure that when we reached the cavern, it would be at ground level.

...

"So this is really cool. I'm guessing you're gonna put in stairs or something?" Marbel spoke up over the rumble of stone turning to gravel and sinking into the walls to make room for us and for air.

I nodded, "Probably at some point, dunno. Hold on, we're close." I reached into the walls with Crocea and Roi and pulled out iron and coal. I fused the two together to make steel and create a large door at the end of the tunnel. I smiled and opened it, revealing a cavern beyond, "Here we are. After you, princess." I gestured playfully towards the door.

Marbel rolled her eyes, "The princess commands the knight to lead the charge." she pointed towards the blackness and I nodded, accepting my role. I kept my Aura activated, glowing azure around me, and led on.

The cavern was quiet, almost dangerously so. My Aura provided a large amount of light, but not a lot. It was very soft and quite faint, but it reached out what I could assume was one millimeter for every one Max AP I had, so that made for...

AP: 37,543/39,200

39.2 meters. I could see more past that, thanks to Magic Eyes, but it was a little tough. I felt metals nearby, a significant amount of them. It seemed that Eagle Mountain was rich with ore.

However, I sensed a disturbance above and backflipped out of the way, just in time for the ceiling to collapse and something to fall in.

I hit it with Gamer's Sight and groaned a bit.

Parantheron Metallurgist
Title: The Claws that Crush Stone
Level: 38

It had a high DEX and relatively high WIS. As its name implied, it had the ability to use metals. To what extent could be seen by its appearance. A few little plates of copper had formed on its fur, and its fangs were triple their normal size and covered with sharpened nickel. I looked at Marbel, getting a nod that she saw some of the information I did due to Leadership. I summoned Vorpal Sword and summoned a hand of stone from the ground to come up and grab it. It wriggled and tried to escape, but the more it struggled, the more the stone dug into its flesh. I nodded to Marbel, and she jabbed her dagger up into its head a few times, killing it and earning herself a couple of levels.

I covered her in a layer of forcefully stilled, silenced air, then I breathed in and let out a battlecry, using Mystral to make the sound carry.

I detected a massive rise in bloodlust, and soon, from one of the passageways poured forth the enemy.

Vulcyrie
Title: Dark Warrior of the Mountain
Level: 26

Vulcyrie Spireus
Title: Cloaked Lancer of the Mountain
Level: 48

Vulcyrie Shieldus
Title: Shadowed Defender of the Mountain
Level: 48

Vulcyrie Cinderus
Title: Blackened Wizard of the Volcano
Level: 49

They were tall and humanoid, standing closer to seven feet tall than six feet. Their bodies were covered with black feathers and four wings sprouted from each of their backs. The ones designated as Spireus wielded crude spears, made of stone shafts and rough metal heads. The Shieldus had, as their name implied, shields attached to their arms, each almost three feet across and surprisingly smooth in their circular shape. The Cinderus had glowing hands and feet, and I understood why when I deflected a bolt of fire away from Marbel's face.

A battery of Spireus charged us, and I dipped out of the way of their thrusts, getting caught in the side by a lucky shot, even despite having Stone Skin and Adamant Foil active. They might be wielding crude weapons, but they had a lot of Strength and a significant amount of numbers. I was glad I buffed Marbel like I had, otherwise she'd be having more difficulty.

A cry of pain cut through my thoughts, and I looked to see that the superior speed of the Vulcyries had ended up with Marbel getting hit. They hadn't impaled her on their spears, but there was a mark forming on her arm due to her weaker Aura trying to defend her. I growled and focused HARD, then clapped my hands and sent a wave of Aura at all of our opponents, shattering their spears and shields in their hands. I reared my sword back and plunged it up to the hilt in the head of the Vulcyrie that had hit my friend.

No Grimm would get away with that. I swore that now.

I needed more speed and more strength, so I decided to do what I had been wondering about.

I activated Beast's Blood and transformed into a Dark Warrior.

Blinding brightness filled my eyes as my Aura glowed around me, changing to a dull red color. The Vulcyries backed away from me, but I could hardly notice that through the chattering of my teeth as it felt like liquid ice had flooded through my veins. I felt my skin turn pale, my eyes ache, and my hair become thinner. Gray locks, crimson eyes, and nearly vampiric-white skin greeted me when I looked at myself in my profile. I saw a brief notification, something about the Grimm, but I tossed it aside as I felt my anger fuel my own STR, DEX, and VIT. What they could fight with after being disarmed was almost useless as I began countering the Cinderus' fire with my own much more powerful fire. Fireballs flew from the tip of Crocea Mors as I swung it, followed by a hail of Energy Arrows backed by Mana Barrage. In seconds I saw the EXP fly in as the crowd was thinned. I turned to find Marbel and assess her condition. She was still in the fight as far as anyone could be concerned, but her Aura was draining as she did Power Strikes in order to deal significant damage to our foes.

I felt something pulsate throughout my arm and saw that Energy Arrow had leveled up again.

Energy Arrow (Active) Level: 30, Exp: 20.00% Cost: 5 AP (10)
A skill that attacks by emitting Aura as a concentrated line of energy. Attack power increases with INT and Mana Affinity. Pierces targets.

Base Power: 55% (40)
Range: 108m (50)
Maximum Number of Arrows per Cast: 13 (1)
Automatic Arrows

I hummed in curiosity. Automatic Arrows? I resumed fire and found that they were forming much quicker than before, and seemed to be much easier to cast. My mind buzzed with thought as I continued lighting up the cave brighter to maintain visibility.

The fields are flooded with lightning and FIRE AND PAIN!

Arrows are falling from the SKY LIKE RAIN!

My sword is drenched with blood and gore so thick!

The smell of ashes and bodies would make lesser men sick!

Music rose from Mystral's power as I sliced through both the specialized Grimm and the lessers, whose levels I noticed were rising rapidly, and some began breaking shapes out of the stone with their claws, forming spears and shields, while some others began rubbing their hands together and stamping their feet.

My distraction was repaid by a flaming foot to the face as a particularly well-leveled Vulcyrie Cinderus pushed me down onto my back. I didn't dare let it press forward, and used Roimontagne to force the stone under my body to shift and raise up, lifting me to my feet like an experimenting table.

Let out your loudest roaring battlecry!

Send them to meet with the devil tonight!

See the fear fill up their eyes!

Make them dine with the devil tonight!

Metal colored the streaks of Aura that flew through the air, Energy Arrows punching through dozens of Grimm in a single volley. Next, lightning made several of them seize up. I pushed through and made Xiburichu focus the flames away from me as I cast Fireball from both hands, one boosted by Mana Barrage, the other casting them at a normal rate. I turned their precious fire against them, scorching feathers off and exposing crimson skin underneath.

You have to stay strong and win this fight!

Just know that they'll dance with the devil tonight!

Heroes cannot waste strength being remembered in gold,

when death always approaches in this world so cold!

I saw levels trickle in as I killed ten, twenty, fifty, a hundred, I wasn't sure how many of these humanoid Grimm fell to my blade and my spells, but after some time, I was running out of Aura, I was about halfway up on HP, and Marbel was worse for wear.

I heard a screech, and the Vulcyries all stopped and backed far away. I looked at Marbel and myself.

Jaune Arc
Title: Wizard of the Elements
Level: 55

Marbel Mayston
Title: A Blooming Rook
Level: 40

She looked at me, "Jaune... I'm scared... I need to dump points if I'm gonna get through this."

I nodded, recovering slowly as I sensed a far more dangerous presence approaching quickly, "Go ahead. It's either that or we die. No respawns, sadly... so just... do what you have to."

She nodded and opened her profile as I held her a little closer. I was much stronger, faster, and tougher in this state, but I felt my Aura locked back. Despite that firm lock, I felt the chains that had been holding it back rattling ever more violently.

From the shadows came a new creature, and my mind briefly thought, "A new challenger approaches." I said with a chuckle.

Marbel took in a deep breath as she applied her points.

HP: 1100 - 7200
AP: 1350 - 6000
SP: 1600 - 9000

Strength: 23 - 30
Dexterity: 30 - 40
Vitality: 26 - 40
Intelligence: 26 - 30
Wisdom: 25 - 50
Luck: 43 - 50

I hummed, then chuckled lowly as I saw the newest enemy come into the chamber. It screeched at me.

Vulcyrie Mantleus
Title: Damned Master of the Mountain
Level: 78

When the kings of darkness come down from their thrones.

The heroes cannot fight this battle alone!

United under one cause, they must stand together,

So they can go down in history forever!

It was a common-ish tactic. Have a class that evolves into a more specialized state, but the further prestige of the class gave it the abilities of all three prestige states. The abomination that stood about thirty feet from us was massive. It stood a solid ten feet tall, its body thicker and more muscular than the lesser Vulcyries. Its spear was a good few inches thick, reaching twelve feet in length with a steel head about a foot in length. Its massive, four-foot-wide circular shield had a few Fire Dust crystals embedded in it. This thing had a little over fifty in both INT and WIS, and if this creature showed the same power levels gained from INT as both I and Marbel had, then there was significant power in the bright red glow wreathing its wrists and ankles. The final detail that was a bit odd to both of us was that it was wearing a weathered, torn dark gray-blue cloak.

I hummed when I heard a pinging sound. I snapped my head towards Marbel to see her looking at a new window.

Marbel has increased her Wisdom and Luck to new heights. Due to the magnitude of her understanding of life and her increased level of fate, she has unlocked her Semblance!

Due to progressing in her life's path, Marbel has unlocked the title "The White Rook of the Flowering Kingdom"!

I grinned a bit, then looked at the huge Vulcyrie. It was strong, incredibly so, but it had a weakness to it. Though it had probably lived for hundreds of years, it had sustained wounds in that time. I saw two of its four wings were drooping uselessly. Crippled out of its main ability, it had probably lost no less than ten levels to such a tragedy on its part.

I looked at the other Vulcyries, who had stood down to the screech of the Mantleus, I realized that, in whatever instinctual drive these Grimm had, the leader of them was challenging us to a fight. Of course, I wouldn't play fair at all, Jaune W: Marbs, what's your semblance? :W

Marbel W: Look. :W with that, she showed me the window.

Semblance: The Rook Mistress (Passive & Active) Level: 1, Exp: 0.00%
The Rook, a soldier of great utility and excellent range. With this power you can perform a high-powered charge to strike enemies head-on with the courage of lions and the ferocity of cavalry. Expands to encompass more rank and power as skill level increases.

Passively increases Movement Speed moving forwards by 50%
Passively increases Movement Speed moving backwards by 100%
Passively increases Movement Speed while side-running by 75%

Grants the ability "Rook Lunge": Boosts Movement Speed by 500% and Momentum Damage by 500% when performed.

I hummed, then smirked. I looked at the Vulcyrie Mantleus, "So you're so smart, eh? What's two plus two?" I asked, mocking it. Really I was curious if it even understo-

*KRRK, KRRK, KRRK, KRRK*

I blinked in surprise. It had carved four furrows in the ground, pointing at them with its spear, before pointing the spear at us. I chuckled and called up Roimontagne's power. I focused and, with a surprising bit of resistance, the spear shattered, and Crocea Mors lifted the large spearhead and turned it. The Mantleus reacted quickly, intense flames melting the spearhead before it could strike. It threw its shield towards me, followed immediately by a screaming bolt of flames. I caught the shield and Auto-Looted it, slapping the flames away. I formed Pluvistral and spread ice towards the Vulcyrie, "Marbel, hit it with the Rook Lunge!" I commanded as I dragged it to its knees with my willpower.

In the bright lights, I could see clearly as Marbel's form slightly blurred, driving her dagger into the chest of the trapped beast. She pulled it out and stabbed it repeatedly, pushing herself to move with all forty points of her DEX stat. I commanded her to pull back as I lunged forward in her place.

At that moment, it broke through the ice and smashed two giant chunks into the side of my head. I saw it fighting out of the ice as I regained my senses, only to get knocked back by a flaming punch. I shook my head, focusing harder. I couldn't believe this. I unequipped my hoodie to prevent it from being damaged and activated Metal Skin and Stone Skin.

Regardless, my HP was low again.

In the moment of truth when they just might die.

They need to release the beast inside!

This power, right now in this form, Dark Warrior, I was being nerfed dangerously. I coughed lightly, then punched at the beast before me, only to get swept up and disemboweled, my internal organs dissolving into white mist as Gamer's Body did its job. I grabbed its face as I conjured up my willpower.

Burn away the black of night.

And wash them all away with the LIIIIIIGHT~!

I felt those chains that had been holding me back shudder, then lurch violent. I felt my insides wrench, and then...

By raising Aura to level 99, you have earned the skill "Aurora"!

I felt my body fill with renewed strength. I grabbed the face of the Mantleus as my Aura suddenly shone outwards like a star, lighting up the entire cavern in azure. I shoved my hand into the beast's chest and used that as an anchor my grip as I PULLED.

With a sickening crack, crunch, and SPLORT, I ripped the head off of the Mantleus. I kicked the headless body's stomach as I held the head tightly in my enhanced fist. I let out a shaking breath and looked down at the dissolving body.

Overwhelmed by the light inside, the status effect "Dark Warrior" has been dispelled by Aurora!

I grinned and looked as several items formed from the body. The Vulcyries all stood silent and motionless. I looked at Marbel with a smile, "We did it, buddy." we really had. I had prestiged Aura, found a way to dispel Dark Warrior, and gained some loot.

You gained 262,000 Lien!

You gained the item "Gefreyja"

You gained the Grimm Mask "Geirskögul"

You gained the item "Emberon Ingot"

You gained the item "Skillbook: Dust Alloy"

What now? "Holy shit." I grinned, "We did it AND I just got a pretty powerful skillbook." I snagged it and the pile of Lien with Auto-Loot, then looked at the the remaining items left behind and the mask held in my hand. The Vulcyrie's around us didn't move, so I took the time to gather up the Lien and loot from the fallen Vulcyries. It was mostly ingots of metal, clumps of somewhere around ten-thousand lien each, a few Fire, Earth, and Metal Dust crystals. A few copies of their stone and metal spears and their stone shields. I found a good several pairs of flaming gloves and flaming boots, and I even found a rare item which was called the Vulcyrie Quadro-Glider. It was like a hang glider, but made of the Grimm's wings and could adjust with the second pair of wings, so I'd say that it was far cooler. I chuckled and prepared to react in case any of the oddly docile Grimm decided to stop being docile. I collected the rest of the loot, then I looked at Marbel and at the Vulcyries. None of them had moved and Marbel hadn't dared try to test it.

I picked up the Emberon ingot, and a quick Gamer's Sight told me that it was essentially element-infused iron. With that mystery solved, I stuffed it next to the other metals and picked up the cloak. It was apparently saturated with imprints of dark spiritual energy from the Mantleus after decades, maybe over a century of being worn. Whatever it was, exactly, was hard to tell, but I knew that I would be the only one able to handle it. With that in mind, I put on the mask, shortly followed by the cloak.

Equipped Grimm Mask "Geirskögul"

You have received the status effect "Mountain's Cradle"!
You have received the status effect "Hellfire Hands"
You have received the status effect "Cinderous Steps"
You have received the status effect "Valhalla's Diplomat"
You have received the status effect "Flight of the Mountain-People"

I found my body shifting and changing. First, I felt the world shift slightly, and the ground seemed become further away. I checked and saw that my height had changed to 6'4", and my STR gained a new boost. My wrists and ankles became wreathed in red energy. I felt... it was hard to describe, but a look at the last two effects cleared up my confusion.

"Valhalla's Diplomat" increases effectiveness with Spears and Shields by 100%, decrease effectiveness with all other weapons by 90% (Partially disabled by Gamer's Body: effectiveness with all other weapons decreased by 50%)

"Flight of the Mountain-People" increases Jumping Height by 500%, reduces Fall Speed by 75%

My musculature had shifted in an odd way, and I could only guess that it had become optimized for the usage of a spear and shield. I jumped in the air and found myself falling far slower than normal. It was hard to tell immediately, but I figured that I could do some interesting things related to gravity with this effect. With everything accounted for, I equipped Gefreyja.

ERR-FIX!

/?!\

You have received the status effect "Dark Aura Invasion (Low)"!

I felt my Aura become... subdued, in a way. It was difficult to describe, but... something was happening.

Marbel was staring at me fearfully, saying something that was hard to hear. The ground became a lot further away, and I unequipped my armor and shirt to look at what was happening.

Black skin spread down from my neck, coloring the light tan that I had acquired. Tentatively, I unequipped the rest of my clothing to see the corruption spreading.

The status effect "Dark Aura Invasion" has intensified from Low to Med!

I called up Aurora to dispel the status effect, but even as the glow blossomed outward like a shining star, the azure color slowly turned into a dull fiery red.

Allowing the powers of the Grimm to be imprinted on your Aura has created the skill "Skotomorphosis"

I shook my head, feeling like lightning flooded through, what I realized now, were the weak currents that were my nerve endings. It spread up into my head as I felt my skin break, bony spikes breaking free. I felt my back split open and, under the cloak, I saw four wings erupt.

The status effect "Dark Aura Invasion" has intensified from Med to High!

Shaking my head to try to clear it, I felt a pressure building up at the base of my neck and behind my nose, as if I had a sneeze stuck in my head and a crick in my neck at the same time. I rolled my shoulders and my head and then felt something shifting in my chest.

The status effect "Dark Aura Invasion" has intensified from High to MAX!

A bird-like caw erupted from my mouth, and I felt Gamer's Mind slam into my perceptions.

Reading the imprints on your soul from your past, you have received the skill "Baleful Warrior"!

I blinked, then opened up the skill descriptions.

-/\-

Skotomorphosis (Active) Level: 1, Exp: 0.00%, Cost: Special
An ability only usable by those who have been, through some means, tainted by the Grimm. Casting aside their humanity, they can assume the lethal forms of the Grimm. More advanced mutations are available at higher levels.

Allows for the mutation of body parts into forms designed to make one a better killer, at the cost of increasing one's corruption.
Imposes the status effect 'Dark Spirit Invasion' if the user does not already possess that status effect.
Cannot be cured by normal means.

Presets: Vulcyrie Mantleus

-/\-

Baleful Warrior (Passive) Level: 2, Exp: 0.00%
An ability inherent to those who have lost their humanity and drawn upon the murderous powers of the Grimm. Mimicking the nature of Aura to boost the body, this ability increases physical traits by a percentage equal to one's corruption. In addition, it grants additional boosts and causes additional changes as a result of slaughtering of human beings.

Can see your Corruption
Humans killed: 2

-/\-

I grit my... beak? I checked my profile and found that, indeed, I had taken on the form of the Vulcyrie Mantleus. I was curious now.

"I'm literally a Grimm."

Suddenly, a new voice spoke up, "You are new master!"

I looked around, "What the- who said that?" Jaune W: Marbs do you hear someone else talking? :W

Marbel W: Right now I'm trying to even in the midst of how odd this is. You're still... you're still human in there, right Jaune? :W

Jaune W: Yes, yes I am. I felt like my head was going to explode, but I guess Gamer's Mind prevented me from losing my humanity. I'm a Grimm on the outside, but I'm a human on the inside. :W

I saw one of the Vulcyrie's step forward, "I did, master." he knelt before me.

I felt a new sensation bubbling up inside me, and I recognized it instantly. Hype was building up inside me over the implications of this. I hadn't lost any Max AP, hadn't lost any APR, and could control these Grimm? That was easy to abuse.

But I didn't abuse it. This was more like a privilege, and when you abuse a privilege, you lose it. So I didn't, "Brave, I like it. You all will follow me now. Going against my direct commands will result in death. Master does not like disobedience. I am the Chief of this tribe and my word is law." I received confirmation, "How many of us remain?" I threw in an 'us' instead of 'you' to give them a sense that I was with them, one of them.

"Only four and four and two fours of us, master, maybe three more." another spoke up.

I did some mental calculations, four and four and two... it seemed that they knew how to count to four, but not past it. Ten fours, that was roughly forty, a max of forty-three. I hummed lowly, then counted them all out, "Is everyone here?"

"We warriors all came, fight intruders, younglings came too, learn from battle." their simplistic speech patterns were a little hard to follow, but it was excusable.

They WERE Grimm after all, "Then only this remains. All wounded come to me. You are not allowed to continue."

Following my orders without question or complaint, eighteen of the assorted warriors came forward.

I looked at Marbel, then smiled, Jaune W: Don't worry, I can fix this by sleeping. I'll fix this later. Right now I'm hijacking the Grimm. :W I commanded them to kneel before Marbel, W: Kill them. They're wounded, and they follow all of my orders. I can kill the rest easily if they protest. :W

Marbel looked at me, Marbel W: Dude, give me a few before you give me more kills, I just... I need to recover from this. :W

I nodded to her, then looked at the wounded warriors, "Kneel before the small human. It will relieve you of duty. Others return home." I ordered, and the other twenty-five Vulcyries left. I noticed that among them, there were nineteen normal ones, three Shieldus, two Cinderus, and one Spireus. Only this was left from nearly three hundred Grimm before? "Also, tell other friends new master is in control. Tell them to not disturb the humans on the surface, or any humans that look like Master's human form."

I watched them all leave, then turned to Marbel, Jaune W: You okay? :W

Marbel W: Are YOU okay? You're speaking only in squawking noises, if you're even speaking. I can't understand anything you try to say outside of this thing. :W

Jaune W: I'm okay, Marbs. Trust me, I'll find a way to fix this, I promise. :W

Marbel W: I hope so. I don't think Yang will be too keen on dating a Grimm. :W

The Vulcyries continued to kneel before her, and after a few more minutes, Marbel was fully recovered. She raised her arm and grabbed the unprotesting 'warriors' by their heads. One by one, she sliced through their tough flesh and killed them all. It was a bit brutal to look at, and I swear she was gagging by the fifth one. Luckily, it wasn't until the last one fell that she collapsed to her knees and her breakfast furiously evacuated from her shaking body. I gently reached out to her and gave her a gentle touch, casting Soulforge on her to help sooth her nerves.

I saw a slight wave of light run up my hand and wrist, coloring the feathers a slightly lighter shade of black. I hummed at the oddity, then began mass-casting Soulforge on myself. With every burst of energy, I shrank, thinned, and generally just reversed in my transformation. It took a good few, maybe several hundred of them to 'cure' the effect, and I'd had to unequip Gefreyja and Geirskögul, but I reversed the process entirely until Dark Aura Invasion was completely cured. I hummed lightly, thinking over the change while giving Marbel a few more Soulforges. She turned to me and her face lit up red, "Uhhhhh... Jaune?"

"Yeah? Don't worry, I'm fine, Marbs. I'm perfectly healthy, properly sized, fit for action." I smiled reassuringly.

I was a little confused when the little brunette only blushed more, "I wouldn't say 'properly' sized... I'd say 'above average' sized..."

"What are you talking abou-" I froze in place when I suddenly felt a breeze run between my legs.

My bare legs.

I spun around and quickly hit the button to put on my normal outfit, "OH GOD I'M SO SORRY!" I felt Gamer's Mind quell the embarrassment I felt. Fucking Grimm powers and the changes they made... now I had accidentally shown my younger, female, friend-of-several-years my dick. Even if it was completely by accident, I was still very, VERY uncomfortable with that, "Uh... I'm afraid to ask, but how much did you see?"

Marbel coughed into her hand, "Every inch." she said a little bluntly, "Look it's fine, okay? I'm guessing the Game gave you... THAT...?"

"Uh, no, it slightly increased... um... max size... as a joke, because apparently I was being mean to it. This all was... like it was before." I felt Gamer's Mind complain at me, "CAN WE PLEASE CHANGE THE SUBJECT?"

"Er, right... uh... the thing about that is that the alternative is talking about the Grimm. I'd rather NOT, so um... yeah... Yang is going to be either ecstatic or terrified." she giggled jokingly, and I laughed lightly to try to ease my tension.

That was a habit I had, I laughed when I was nervous or embarrassed. It wasn't the best, but it wasn't the worst, "Ahahahaha, yeah probably... I GUESS I could say I'm proud of it, but I mean... I don't want to brag, or anything. I'd rather let it speak for itself." I was glad Marbel had as much Closeness and Respect for me as she did, as well as the history we had together, because she laughed too, and we slowly let it just become a joke.

"Heehee, yeah, I guess it's for the best, Yang is a LOT of woman, so you need to be a LOT of man to handle her." Marbel giggled as we trekked back into the tunnel and I used Roimontagne to give us an express elevator lift up to the top of the tunnel and back into the normal cave.

I saw my Closeness with Faction: Eagle Mountain Grimm boost up by a few hundred more than it had when I assumed the in-faction title of Master of the Vulcyries, "Well I just hope she can take it. My CHA is pretty high, so is my VIT, so if I hit a growth spurt, then~..." I let myself trail off, chuckling.

Marbel blushed a bit more, but kept up with the joking atmosphere we'd created, "Then your growth will spurt."

I let out a sound of joking disgust, "Oaaahhhhhhh~, you did NOT just go there."

A smirk played across her lips, "YOU haven't gone 'there', so I went there for you." her laughter turned more playful.

I gave her a scrutinizing look, "You better not have touched my girlfriend, Marbs. I know she gives you a ride on her motorcycle since your scooter is slow, but that isn't an invitation to feel her up."

Marbel shook her head and waved her arms, "Oh GOD no! No no no no no no! I don't like girls like that, straight as an arrow and clean as a whistle, Jaune."

"Your jokes hint that the latter claim isn't as true as you'd want me to believe." I wiggled my eyebrows at her as we came out into the cave.

"Hey, YOU'RE the one who came to me without any pants on." she said with a snicker, shrugging as we both relaxed fully when sunlight hit our faces. Now that things were calm, I took the time to check the skill I'd been most curious about.

-/\-

Aurora (Passive & Active) (prestiged from Aura) Level: 10, Exp: 0.00%

Aura is the manifestation of one's soul. However, after a combination of expanding and training one's aura, the user has taken the final step to break their Aura free to be expressed to an incredible degree. Now that their Aura is too large and powerful to be wholly contained by their mortal frame, the user has turned into something much more than just a man. With the light inside released and burning like a star, they have the strength to throw back the shadows of the night. This skill enhances the user's Aura, giving them the power they need to face the horrors that await them in the darkness.

Passively increases STR by 75%. (60)
Passively increases DEX by 75%. (60)
Passively increases VIT by 75%. (60)
Passively increases INT by 75%. (60)
Passively increases WIS by 75%. (60)

Additional 60+18% increase to STR when activated.
Additional 60+18% increase to DEX when activated.
Additional 60+18% increase to VIT when activated.
HP and SP regeneration speed increased by 200+36% when activated.

The effect of the user's Aura may be enhanced by spending more MP.
The sheer power of this expression Aura can dispel some negative status effects.

-/\-

I stared at the skill. It seemed that my problem with my Aura before was that I hadn't... well... I hadn't PUSHED it. I had figured that summoning my last elemental would have done the trick, but I suppose there was a reason that Summon Elemental was under its own folder, separate from Aura. The two worked well together, but now I supposed that things were a little different. I had had good reason to use Charging Shine, but if Aurora's second-last effect was to be believed, I could now very accurately pour my Aura into enhancing my spells, and free of charge as well.

"Well I'm sorry but I kinda turned into a Grimm. I was trying to keep track of my changes." I excused, crossing my arms over my chest, "Now then, in case you might not have noticed, you're now the second-highest level person in the party. If you want to keep your stat points, then I suggest you start training again. I got enough stuff together to give you new tools." I took out the all-metal axe I'd given her to chop logs with, then piled more metal onto the simple woodsman's axe, turning its shape into a large greataxe and making it weigh a couple hundred pounds. I handed it to her and set up logs on the stump she'd been using before.

Her arms shook as she lifted the tool up, now more a weapon than anything else, and I shifted the weight of it to be more balanced. Her struggle lessened as I squeezed about fifty pounds from the mass of the thing. Still, she was now lifting about two hundred and fifty pounds of metal, "Geez, Arty, you're killin' me here." she grunted as she lifted the axe and brought it down, splitting the first of many logs.

"You gotta push yourself if you want to improve. You wanna be a Huntress, you gotta get stronger, and faster, and tougher, and smarter, and wiser, and you might need to get luckier, and hey, working out will improve your figure too. Also, don't think I didn't see the way you sneakily doubled your CHA. It wasn't too sneaky, since I can keep track of all the changes you girls go through with surprising accuracy. Don't worry, your secret is safe with me." I chuckled softly, "Now then, I'm gonna go into. No Grimm should interrupt you. I commanded the Vulcyries to tell all the Grimm to not disturb us. I'll have to pass on that they need to stop bothering Yang, Ruby, and Blake too." I hummed softly as I began planning and running back towards town. I stopped, though, and had an idea.

I equipped Geirskögul and began Sprinting at top speed, piling on every buff I had. When I reached a point I felt was appropriate, I did a Power Jump and began soaring through the air. True to my theory, I rose up normally, but began falling at a very slow rate, only a quarter of gravity's pull. With this power, I also managed to carry myself easily on the wind, doing a Superman pose as I flew through the air. I was tempted to use Skotomorphosis and change myself, but it would turn me into a full Grimm if I didn't counter it with near-constant Soulforges, since it transformed my body with the status of Dark Aura Invasion. Pushing the thought aside, I began flying towards my destinations and getting ready to make some purchases.

---

(That night, Eagle Mountain, Jaune POV)

I sighed softly. I told the girls that I needed some time. I told them to do what they needed to do to grow, but in the meantime, I was going to meditate with the powers of either Wizard v3, or Monk v3, the latter which I'd also unlocked by raising my WIS to 100. The plan was as simple as my plan for Run: just take some time solely to grind those skills. The big difference was that I would be doing this for about two weeks instead of about two days like last time, and .

I'd asked Yang if she could make me some fresh food every once in a while, storing it in the inventory so I could eat it whenever convenient. It was necessary that I didn't die of starvation. She accepted with a smile. She didn't mind my busy lifestyle, she was quite busy with Signal as it was, what with finals around the corner and her INT and WIS being put to the test.

Blake relayed information to me from my father, leaving messages for me in the form of texts that I'd read on my food breaks. She also would be moving fully to Eagle Mountain where the White Fang wouldn't find her, and I'd start constructing a fortress with Roimontagne that she could live in. We had over a million Lien, so she would get her physical training from moving furniture and decorating the fortress, and pay me back by killing Grimm to get more Lien, and keeping the place clean.

Marbel would continue her training just outside where she could get me if she needed it. I would stop every few days to give her a hyper-extended Regeneration, then resume my meditation. Her goal was just to go as far as she could manage and let the cooling, healing power of Water Magic sooth her muscles before heading home. When I was done and hopefully had made great headway with Summon Elemental, Elemental Aura, all of my Ki Skills, my various magic attacks, Soulforge on the plants I'd hit, and as a result Natural Bond and Green Thumb, and especially a skill I'd gained from a book at the library.

Awaken Aura (Active) Level: 12, EXP: 0.00%, Cost: 1780 AP
The skill that began the Age of Enlightenment. Tired of using various other methods to attempt to manifest souls, the ancient monks studied and discovered a simpler and easier way to draw out the lights of others. Using the fire of your own soul, you can ignite the soul of another. Through the granting of this power and trust unto another individual, you may banish the veil of shadows that hides the light within, releasing a soul kept locked away by mortal flesh and worldly woes, so that another may use this power to shield their heart and bear their burdens.

Effect: Awakens the Aura of another living being

I had once, using house rules, had my Paladin in D&D pray in all of the areas around his church. It had taken several in-game weeks of repetition, with spending almost the entire day praying away in various areas, but I'd essentially sanctified all of the area around my church, giving a holy perimeter that acted as a deterrent for evil and demons. Sadly, the paladin had died at the end of that campaign, but another party member, a mere Rogue (played by Marbel) who had been touched and shocked by my Paladin's dedication, took up the mantle of his work. He lost some of his Rogue abilities, but in the end he became a Paladin himself. The flavor text for the epilogue of that campaign mentioned that due to the respect my Paladin's god had for his dedication and his project, the Rogue had been granted some of his power and an increased Sanctify range. After decades of prayer and worship, the elf had sanctified the entire forest and grown stronger than even the original Paladin.

Now, of course, that was just a game, but so was my life now. My plan was simple, I'd create an invisible bubble of dryness around myself to keep the rain off of me, start with one patch of grass I'd mass-awaken, and start branching out from there. Every few minutes I'd awaken the Aura of another tuft of grass, and if I was correct in my theory, I'd end up with an area that would be considered 'sanctified' by the time the two weeks was up. It wouldn't be very big, but it would be a start. It would take probably a month of dedicated Awakening just to 'light up' the clearing itself. I could try to do more, but without more Wisdom, more Max AP, more APR, a lower cost to Awaken Aura, or any of a number of things that could give me some type of advantage, even if just a small one, I'd have to do some hardcore horticulture.

Thankfully, my interruption came right as I was about to start. I'd taken time to awaken the Aura of some tufts of grass, which I found covered a three-by-three inch square of grass at a time. However, what my interruption WAS was more surprising that anything.

Vulcyrie Spireus
Title: Cloaked Lancer of the Mountain
Level: 48

Hit Points: 10000/10000
Stamina Points: 15000/15000

Strength: 74
Dexterity: 72
Vitality: 55
Intelligence: 26
Wisdom: 30
Luck: 15

It cawed at me several times, and I caught on as it gestured to its face. I cast Skotomorphosis and changed into the Mantleus. It happened faster this time, due to me casting it with want. As the transformation fully took hold, I made sense of its words, "Master. There were other humans here. Others want know if we should kill them."

"No, do not harm those three humans. Even if they kill other friends, I make sure they no kill us brothers and sisters." I commanded, adopting their speech patterns, "You late to come ask this, why?"

"We go to fight them, we die, just as many of us did to Master's human form and little other human." it answered solemnly, "We know better than walk into death. Master invaded our home before he become master. We did not know he plan that. Old Master was very old, but very strong. New master is even stronger, have false power like human, like real, but not."

I raised an eyebrow, "False power? How do you figure that?"

"Master's power is like their light, but not. Comes from dark, from world around, flow into Master a lot, very strong, we all impressed. New Master extremely strong, stronger than all of us." it knelt before me, a light *shunk* of its spear poking into the ground being audible in the silence that followed.

I was... honestly a little surprised. I heard a notification and saw that a sub-objective of the quest Summon Fire from Shadow was completed. Apparently, I now knew the source of the mysterious dark soul power of the Grimm. The world around them. I cleared my throat, "Rise. Master must ask, how do human's light come in?"

"It doesn't, human's light come from inside soul. Master's fake light does too, but comes from outside as well. Master truly is good fake." he nodded and almost seemed to smile at me.

"Very well. How friends hold this energy?"

"Ah, we not have much holding of soul energy. It flow in lots but stop flowing if we tire energy. Fire brothers can go long time. Master have large holding space, very good for fight long time."

I noticed the second objective become completed, and pushed on, "How do fire brothers use the fire?"

"They push fire from world through body. It hard to keep going long time, they say, but they all good at it now, Old Master made them do it lots even when no humans to fight." he sounded perplexed as he thought about that, clearly having no grasp of the concept of training.

"Interesting, much like Master does now, but can do it with all elements." I showed him fire, wind, water, metal, lightning, and earth all on my six fingertips, keeping my thumbs out of the display, "How they get good at doing it?"

"Master truly is strong. Fire friends got good by doing it lots. Did it lots to rocks to shinerocks and glitterrocks. Lost fire friend to glitterrock exploding once. He lost all limbs and head."

I looked at the last objective, and decided that since I was on a roll, it was worth a shot, "Master wants to know. Why not all friends have energy power? Like the younglings?"

He shrugged, "Don't know. Some learn, some don't. It all made of potential." he said simply, forcing me to think it over.

It was made of potential, of the potential that they had to become powerful. Potential was what COULD be, not what simple was. It meant that to some degree, it was based on chance due to the fact that they could turn into one of three things. That meant...

Wait...

Wait a fucking second...

...

...

...

SON OF A BITCH!

It was based on LUCK? I remembered seeing that the average of the Vulcyrie Cinderus had been about twenty, while the Shieldus and Spireus had been closer to fourteen and fifteen

IT WAS BASED ON LUCK!

I facepalmed, "Of course." I thought back to when Marbel had increased her Luck in her stat boosting. Raising her WIS and LUK had increased her understanding of her fate and unlocked her semblance. It was a show of her POTENTIAL!

Goddammit, Luck, you're useful to a degree, but you just mess up my mood! I can't believe it, "I see..." I wish I didn't, but I did.

Sure enough, the last sub-objective was completed, shortly followed by.

QUEST COMPLETE!

Quest "Summon Fire from Shadow" has been succeeded!

You have been rewarded +5 WIS!

Your Closeness to The Grimm has increased!

Completing the objectives by asking Grimm about them has increased your WIS by 1 and your CHA by 3!

Completing this quest as a Vulcyrie Mantleus has given you +5 Fire Affinity!

You have advanced in this questline according to your success.

-/\-

(To Jaune) QUEST RECEIVED!

I moved the window to the side, looking at my subordinate as he spoke, "Master... I request something. I wish to have this fake power like you do. May you help me do this?"

I hummed in thought, then looked at the quest I'd received

Quest: Chilled Fingers relying on a Spark

Description: The Odd Vulcyrie Spireus has requested help in acquiring a soul. Help it shed the corruption of the Grimm and create new light.

Objective: Purify the Odd Vulcyrie Spireus.
-Give it an identity
-Clear away the 'it'
-Teach it about life
-Teach it about light
-Teach it about humanity
-Help it understand its skills
-Give it friendship
-Help it unlock its dark soul power
-Reduce its corruption to a low percentage
-Awaken the soul that will eventually form within it

Reward for completion: +20% mastery of Awaken Aura, +10% master of Mana Affinity, +3 Fire Affinity, +5 CHA. Increased closeness with The Grimm. ?

Penalty for failure: -10% master of Mana Affinity, Permanently increased hatred from The Grimm. Death of the Odd Vulcyrie Spireus. Resets progress in this questline until a new subject can be found. Lose an unknown percentage of Max AP

I hummed, then accepted the quest. It wasn't just my compulsion to complete all quests I received, but also a desire to see more. This was extremely interesting now. The Game was making the proposition to me that I could turn a Grimm into a human through a series of steps. I was determined to see this through, just to know if it would actually work.

I nodded, "I will help you. First, I need to teach you." I started to change myself back with heavily overcharged Soulforges, "You need to become not just a brother, but become your own person. If you wish to claim the powers of man, then you must claim the identity of man." I informed, staying about halfway changed, still able to communicate.

It seemed to struggle with that, "I need... to be like humans. Humans have the light, so I need to be like a Human to have the light. I see... I understand..." I saw its WIS increase by 1, "Then I must start... I am... a man. I am a man and I am a... I am..." it struggled a bit, but I had clarified that it was male, "I am in need of identity."

I cleared my throat, "For humans, identities are given as names. Every man, woman, and child has a name. You need a name for yourself if you are to unlock Aura, which is the light they wield."

"This is more struggle than I looked forward to." he admitted, "I am... I am the name of... no... my name is... my name is..." he let out a low sound of struggle as I could tell the tiny hamsters running the wheels in his head were going to burst a blood vessel if they had to work any harder, "I cannot think like this. I will make a name for myself and tell you about it later. Master will be able to wait, yes?"

I nodded, "Do not hurt yourself trying to make a name, brother. Leave and think, but do not return to me for 14 suns, understand?"

He knelt before me again as I shrank further, "Understood, Master. I will return to the village now." I watched as he flew up and kept my line of sight on him until he crested the mountain and descended. I could only assume that meant that he had come from a cave entrance leading out the back of the mountain. I'd have to check on that eventually. For now, I put all of that aside, equipped Wizard v3 for the APR boost, and began to meditate.

I let my consciousness explode outwards into the world as I tucked in for two full weeks of meditation.

When I awoke, I hoped things would be better.

...

...

...

Yeah right. Luck or not, things weren't meant to get better unless I played a part in them.

---

Well, I think that's a good spot to end the chapter, don't you?

Oh boy, Jaune has interacted with the plot that was revealed in Volume 3, but we're not going to be seeing any effects of that just yet. He's preparing to do some hardcore soul-grinding, regardless of what the White Fang need from him. Banesaw will just have to pick up the slack, won't he?

He's also summoned his final elemental and learned more of some sort of 'truth'. In addition, he has a new version of Wizard to use and reached a new benchmark in WIS. Things are looking up for him, aren't they?

Hahaha.

A dungeon-like area was right under his nose the entire time! And he cleared it with the now over-leveled Marbel, who has discovered her semblance and gained a new title! Speaking of titles, Jaune gained a useful one this time, however for his grinding session, he'll still be using Intermediate Hero. +25% to EXP gains? To ALL Exp gains? As Jaune has said before, "EXP, EXP, gimme please, EXP."

Leave your reviews on the chapter below, telling what you liked and what you didn't as well as speculations on the future and on what might happen with some of the plotlines that had been opened up.

Unfortunately, that's all there is for now, folks, except for the omake. Let's look at the omake, shall we?

---

Omake: Blonde Power!

---

Taiyang was joyous. He hadn't had this much fun since the last time he saw either of his wives. Normally thinking those thoughts would kill his mood faster than his fist crashing into a Beowolf, but there was one major factor preventing that.

He was shit-faced drunk.

His old Beacon buddy, John Arc, had extended the hand of friendship, as well as an olive branch to him on Jaune's behalf. Truth be told, he didn't have anything against the boy personally, but nobody was good enough to date his daughter.

Not even gods were. As long as he was in charge, Yang and Ruby would both remain innocent kissless virgins until the day they died. Men in their lives would make trouble, and trouble made bad things happen.

He was trouble enough nearly getting both his wives pregnant at the same time. Summer had told him something about her eyes making certain things not work. After confirming that it didn't inhibit or disable the function of his penis, he didn't care. He'd fuck the silver right out of those eyes.

He had almost busted a gut laughing when he first saw the tiny baby Yang open her eyes. Purple. She had purple eyes.

He had blue eyes, Raven had red eyes. Yang Xiao Long, the product of the two sexiest people he knew, was so completely joined from their mutual efforts that her eyes had come out as the mixture of both of their colors. As he grew up, he found that Yang took a lot of her looks from Raven, but a pleasing amount of her personality, including her humor and ideals, from him. Plus she was blonde, that automatically made her awesome.

Sadly, she had been cursed with the Xiao Long genes of being very well endowed... okay it wasn't a curse when it had given him the biggest dick in Beacon back in his day, but it was a curse because his innocent little angel had the body of a succubus!

That was bad, those had 'suck' in their names!

"Dude, DUDE! HEY! TAI!" he was slapped upside the head and launched upwards. After bashing his head on the ceiling, he fell down onto the floor, feeling like some air had been blown at him, "TAI!"

"WHAT JOHN?!"

"Oh good you're actually conscious. I was afraid you passed out over your booze like old times." despite having drained an entire bottle of vodka and some good ol' Jack Daniels, John Arc still seemed to be stone-cold sober, "Come on, I just saw this guy leaving and he was talking about how guys with blonde hair and blue eyes were the best people in the world. Sounds like he's speaking our language!"

"Oh hell yeah, BLONDE POWER!" Taiyang pumped his fist, shattering the bar for twenty feet around. Casually dropping twenty thousand lien on bartender's cracked hand, he followed his fellow Huntsman outside.

The two left the bar and walked out into the cool night air. John looked around, seeing only some scrawny black-haired guy getting beaten, "Huh... crap, we lost him!" he snapped his fingers, "Hey, wanna go pull a prank on lil' Glyn?"

"Dude, she'll kill us."

John waved a hand and blew a raspberry, "Pfffffffft~, according to my son's semblance, we'd have gigantic-ass Vitality scores, so whatever she'd hit us with, we could tank it."

"Vitality scores?" Taiyang blinked with every syllable he spoke, as if trying to make sure he said anything at all correctly

"Oh yeah something like that. It means we have a lot of health and stamina."

"Hehehehe, I can attest to the stamina. I once made love to Raven for so long, she passed out halfway through. Then again she had a hair-trigger for pleasure. I hope Yang didn't inherit that." he mused, walking down the street with his fellow blonde.

"Pfffffffffffffft, I hope she did! That'd be awesome, I swear Jaune would drive her crazy with that. It's not just my alcohol tolerance that's heavyweight, bro."

"Dude we both know that I had and still have the biggest dick to be found among the men of Beacon Class of '92." it was true. He'd been willing to let them all measure up against him. He was bigger when soft than most men got when hard. It was just the Xiao Long genes.

"True, but you're the shortest in height." John stuck out his tongue at the shorter man. Of course, Taiyang wasn't very short at all, standing about 6'2, but by some unbelievable chance, John, Ozpin, Ironwood, and Oobleck had all ended up as 6'6+ giants. Even Glynda was now, if he remembered correctly from his last visit, about 6'5.

"Actually not anymore, Qrow ended up only 6'0." Taiyang chuckled as the two turned a corner, a sign marking it as a Huntsman's Free-travel street, and they took off. Even if he was shit-faced drunk, he could still muster the focus to run at a few hundred miles per hour.

"Shit, man, he's so smol." John chuckled as the two made their way to the airship docks. Once there, just a few minutes later, he showed his ID to a terminal officer, "Official Huntsman Business. We need the first flight to Beacon you can get."

The person behind the counter bowed their head, "O-of course sir, there's a ship that's idle right now, you can take that one." the woman sat down and passed on the message.

Taiyang chuckled as the two made their way towards the airship. Once out of earshot, "Nice. Yeah it's pretty important business, we're going on a panty raid~."

"Hey, panties are important business, they hide the succulent fruit of life. However, I prefer boobs, personally." John brushed his knuckles on his shirt, smirking lightly.

Taiyang laughed, "Hah, ass man here. I dunno, call me an animal, but there's just some primal urge I feel to enjoy ass." they sat down and buckled up, "Y'know?"

"Yeah, I know. Man... I can't believe you got BOTH of them to marry you. How'd that happen?" the knight pulled out a flask and began drinking.

"Oh it was really emotional. It had taken a long time, but they'd both fallen in love with me, and I couldn't choose which one to go for, so I looked up if it was illegal and found that it was actually encouraged, since there's a deficit of males in the world. Of course there are rules in place and I won't bother you with the details, but it was all within the law and consented to by all parties involved." he smiled as he pulled out his reading glasses and began cleaning them with his shirt.

"Wow, that's pretty slick. Sadly, Juni was the only woman who caught my heart. Heh, love is pretty confusing, y'know? Suddenly your life doesn't matter as much as it did, and you're trying to keep another person happy more than yourself. You don't understand, and it's impossible to try. Suddenly someone else matters more to you than yourself, and you'll do anything to keep them with you. They're riveted into your life, and if they're removed, then it takes part of your life away too. Y'know?"

Taiyang stared ahead, then signed, "I know. Summer died when Ruby was four years old. You know the Grand Incursion of '05?"

"Oh shit, man, year I know. Word is they announced that all the repairs were completed just last year." John ran a hand through his hair, messing it up just a little, but he didn't mind, "She was in the city when it happened?"

"No, worse. She went after the source."

"THE SOURCE? You mean the fucking Dark Rift?"

"Yeah. And she closed it."

"ALONE? It usually takes five fucking people to do that!"

"Usually. Not with her. She was... she was amazing." Taiyang smiled, but his eyes were filled with sadness.

John couldn't stand it, and pulled his fellow blonde in for a bro-hug, "Dude, don't worry, okay? Tonight, we're supposed to have fun. Assuming Glynda doesn't knock us out and ship us home, after this let's go back and get so drunk we can't even remember what sobriety is."

Taiyang smiled a bit, "Alright, that settles it then. We'll do that... what if Glynda DOES knock us out and ship us home?"

"Then we go out tomorrow night!" John broke the bro-hug and held up his hand for a fistbump.

Taiyang returned the bump with a smile, "Alright, fair enough." he wiped away a few tears that had nearly escaped, and his expression turned more joyful, "Alright, I think we're almost there. I hope you've developed a better landing strategy than 'tank the fall'."

"Come on, tanking the fall is my specialty." John smirked as he brought out his shield, "Of course I have more tricks than that now."

Taiyang smirked and stood up, his aura forming into a pair of draconic wings on his back, "Well show me, then." he jumped from the airship and began gliding down with his wings.

John smirked back and jumped, now in full platemail. Conjuring up his semblance, he didn't so much as shift his armor as merely pull it, forcing his downward momentum to slow. Still, he landed on the ground with a six-foot wide crater forming around him on impact. Taiyang didn't seem to have much better luck, in fact from where he could see, the man had formed an even larger crater. Doing a 'Huntsman Skipper' over, the knight performed several very quick lunges over to his fellow blonde, "Well, I'd show you but you weren't looking, ass."

"Ass MAN, thank you. I'm too drunk to be concerned with comparing craters, John." the shorter blonde excused in a posh tone, "Now then, shouldn't we be getting to the raiding of panties?"

"Of course, dear brethren-in-armaments, we should." John returned in his own posh tone.

The two laughed raucously as they made their way to the building that housed the professors' dorms. Once inside, they stopped laughing and started sneaking, with Taiyang humming the Mission Impossible theme song to amplify their stealth abilities.

After a few minutes, they found the door marked Goodwitch on the top floor, then grinned. It was dangerous in there, but they had a mission, and it wasn't going to be impossible, just like the movie Taiyang was humming.

"Xiao Long will you stop that infernal humming?" they both froze as John formed a lockpick out of the finger of his gauntlet. They slowly turned their heads to see a very awake, very annoyed Glynda Goodwitch standing just a foot to their left

"SHIT SHE'S SEEN US!" Taiyang nearly screamed as he jumped up and tried to fly away.

Unfortunately, despite his furiously flapping wings, he didn't move an inch, caught in a purple glow.

"What were you doing trying to break into my dormitory?" the deputy headmistress demanded of the two, lifting the knight as well.

"Um... to... enteerrr~." John drew out the last word in an attempt to buy more time.

Unfortunately, the witch was too experienced to fall for such a trick, and immediately replied, "For the purpose of?"

"We were going to give you a surprise~?" John attempted, looking awkward. Now that he thought about it, he might have cursed his son with awkwardness.

"What surprise? You know I don't like surprises."

"You'd like this one. A surprise threesome with the two best dudes from the class of '92! Blonde power threesome!" Taiyang said with a bright grin, put an arm around John's shoulder and hiccuping.

Glynda sighed, getting strong hints as to the source of this behavior, "As much as sexual misconduct would delight my delicate palate-"

"That's not the only part of you that'll be delighted." the martial master said with a lecherous grin.

"Shut up. Just shut up." she could feel a migraine coming on, "John never officially filed for divorce so this would be classed as adultery. Not only that, but I do not do drunken bouts of... 'wild fun', as you would so eloquently put it."

"Wha- I'm not drunk! *hic* How dare you!" the still shit-faced blonde countered.

Of course, it was ineffective, "Riiiiiiiiiight... I'm going to knock you out and ship you home now." the witch cocked her wrist, prepared to deliver the precise blow that would deliver the two men swiftly into unconsciousness.

"No wait wait wait!" John spoke up finally, "Please don't do that. Just send us back to the city, please. We promise we won't bother you again tonight, just let us go get more drunk so we can forget our problems for a while."

The witch sighed, then dropped them, "Alright, fine. Leave, NOW." she pointed down the hall.

The two men fled down the hall.

...

John helped the stumbling, drunken Taiyang off the boat to Patch. "You shouldn't have drank to the music."

"How the hell was I supposed to know that Lil' Jon was gonna come on?" the shorter blond grumbled, clenching his stomach. Luckily they had been next to a trash can, as the knight forced his head down right as a thick stream of vomit escaped his lips like dragonfire.

The knight sighed and patted his old friend on the back, "You gonna leave my son alone to date your daughter?"

"Sure whatever, I already got my ass chewed out by Qrow over i-BLUUUUHHHH!" his words died as another blast of vomit was nearly projected out of his mouth with the force of a fire hose. Luckily the trashcan withstood the blast, but it would die a martyr, remembered forever by all of trashcankind.

John rubbed Taiyang's back as he released the rest of his stomach's contents, "Gross. I didn't know you or Qrow were into that sort of thing." he watched as the violent stream thoroughly finished off the trashcan. It had been noble, and produced countless bags of trash in its life. Hopefully its family would be able to go on without it.

The two slowly trudged through the streets of Patch City, making their way to the city limits and, from there, onwards to the Rose/Xiao Long household.

After a while, John spoke up, "So is the reason why you live two miles out from Patch City the same that I'm thinking it is?"

Taiyang chuckled lowly, "Yeah, so nobody would hear Raven's and Summer's screams of ecstasy. Trust me, I kept track of how many flocks of birds have been disturbed by us... okay well I lost track, but it was in the triple digits before things started going to shit."

"Heh, nice. So tell me, will either of your precious daughters freak out if I bring you home drunk?"

"They shouldn't. They've seen me drunk. I'm not an angry drunk, I'm a sad drunk." Taiyang said in a mumble as they made their way through the forest.

John chuckled, then nearly froze as he saw Jaune running from the house in the distance, "Dammit." he swore under his breath.

"What?" Taiyang looked up, however he was too late to see the young Arc leaving his home, "What's wrong?"

"Oh, uh, just stepped in a bit of shit, I think." the knight lied, hurrying up a bit, "Come on, before you throw up again." he practically picked up the shorter man and carried him the rest of the way.

Before they knew it, they'd reached the enclosed front porch. Fishing Taiyang's key out of his own pocket, John unlocked the door, then turned to the shit-faced man next to him, "The door's open."

Taiyang ceased trying to find his keys, "Huh? Are you a wizard~?" he asked in awe at the open portal in front of him.

"Sure, let's go with that. Also I'm responsible." with a precise flick, the taller blonde launched the keys into bowl on the table near the door, "Come on, get inside."

The slouched martial master nodded and trudged inside, "Noooooo~... blossom why did you have to fall asleep watching a movie? You left the disc on, it'll get scratched~." the man whined as his fellow blonde closed the door.

John sighed as he started to walk away. He hoped his son hadn't left traces of his presence behind, or things might end up going bad all over again.

As the scent of the wooden house faded from his nose, the veteran smelled something vile. Looking down, he checked his shoes

"GODDAMMIT! THESE WERE NEW SHOES!" he shouted angrily to the sky.

Maybe he should find his son and get some levels, so he could boost his stats.

He wanted to ask how much that Luck stat worked.

---

Sudden ending to the omake? Yeah, but it's funny (at least I'd like to think so)

So yeah, a dungeon run ended with Jaune boosted and Marbel now as the second-highest leveled person in the party.

As for scaling, let's give a rough estimate. If Jaune wanted to achieve a certain level, he'd have to kill about 100-200 Grimm of that exact level. If he wants to get ~5 levels above that, he has to kill about about 150-200 more Grimm of that same level. For example, he was level 49, his enemies were mostly leveled 47-50, he helped kill about 260-ish of them, with most of the EXP from that, and ended up at level 55. However, he then went to finish off the level 78 Mantleus and got 3 levels just from that, putting him at 58.

For now, I got this out in a week and I'm happy with that. I'm currently in the swing of college, so chapters will probably end up coming out mostly on Mondays, but I'll try to take less than a week and a half with each new one. This isn't a guarantee, but it's a word I'll hold myself to as much as I can.

Now then, let's get this thing ended with the obligatory info drop.

-/\/\/\/\-

Jaune Arc
Title: Intermediate Hero
Level: 58
Class: Wizard v3
Nickname: Mr. Player Man

HP: 16,600/16,600
AP: 48,000/48,000
SP: 23,000/23,000

Strength: 60 (+175%) = 165
Dexterity: 53 (+175%) = 145.75
Vitality: 70 (+175%) = 192.5
Intelligence: 101 (+5) (+175%) = 291.5
Wisdom: 107 (+5) (+175%) = 308
Luck: 110
Charisma: 80

Stat Points: 152

Age: 17
Birthday: November 20th
Race: Human
Height: 5'11.5
Weight: 195
Build: Medium Athletic
Hair/Eyes/Skin: Bright Blonde / Bright Azure / Light Tan

-/\/\/\/\-

Alright, there we go, everything's done for now!

Phew, this chapter came out to over 26k words, way more than my goal. I actually find this to be a biiiiit of a mistake. I think I should try to type my goal of 12k-18k words, maybe 13k-20k for a bit more room, and get the chapters out faster, rather than make them longer and take more time getting them out.

I hope you all enjoyed it, and whether you did or not, leave a review. Go ahead and tell me what was good, and what wasn't. All criticism is welcome.

Now then, if you'll all excuse me, I need to work on some college things, as well as the next chapter.

See ya later~!

^w^