The rooftop was silent for a while. The others that were standing here, watching, most likely didn't really notice what actually happened. Hell, they were probably not even fully paying attention until just now, when the flames changed to green.

  Almost too afraid to ask, everyone just stood there, but it didn't take long for them to learn the outcome of the ritual.

  "Yes! It worked! Holy shit, it worked! Hahaha!" Oliver laughed loudly and stretched his arms up into the sky triumphantly. He looked around as if trying to find Ashton, who was slightly lit up by the lesser wisp's dim light. But he himself couldn't really pay attention to what Oliver was doing or saying.

  "... A deity... He summoned a divine being?" Ashton whispered to himself, slowly looking down at his own chest where the 'bornless one' had touched him before. But almost immediately, that moment of confusion was washed away. There was no way that was a true god. The things that it took to summon a god directly were inconceivable. Even the Summoner had always failed. A simple ritual like this would not be able to do anything of the sort.

  Rather, it was most likely some kind of avatar... the sort of thing that a summoner could also call forth when forming a contract with a divine being. It was called here through a short request, and then cleansed the area around the building. The mana here was cleaner than it had been before, shockingly so.

  But that 'primordial deity' still perceived the world through the avatar, and noticed Ashton. But why would it take an interest in him, rather than Oliver, who had actually contacted it?

  There was something that the Executor had mentioned before. It was hidden in the description of the quest, but it said that they were 'impressed by the form' of his soul. Ashton had no clue what that actually meant, but it was likely that the bornless one was able to spot something similar in Ashton that they found interesting in some way.

  "Congrats," Ashton said as he approached Oliver, trying to not show what was going through his mind right now. "Honesty, I'm a bit shocked you were able to do it all in time."

  Smugly, Oliver held his hand in front of his mouth to hide just how excited he was. It didn't work.

  "You're shocked? Tell me about it! I actually got the Occultist class!"

  "So... this 'Bornless One', what is it exactly?"

  Oliver thought about his answer to that question for a moment. "It's like... an ancient deity, sort of? We first really heard about it in these Graeco-Egyptian magical scriptures. Originally, it was called the 'Headless One', but it was sort of reinterpreted at some point?" He tried to explained. "Essentially, it's a deity that lives outside of life and death. You know... because it wasn't 'born'? Summoning it is supposed to spiritually empower the summoner, and exorcise evil spirits."

  Ashton could feel the Backpacker perk up within his vessel. 'He didn't mean you, don't worry,' he mentally told the spirit, and then focused back on Oliver.

  "And it just did that, to some degree. I didn't really notice myself before, but there was all this... gunk stuck in the mana. Like impurities."

  "Impurities?" Oliver wondered as he looked around. "Really? I guess it feels a bit easier to breathe..."

  "Oh, it's not that kind of thing," Ashton said as he walked back toward the door. "I'll explain on the way down. Everyone, let's vacate the rooftop and I'll explain it on the way downstairs."

  Since they were still in perfect sight of any potential flying monsters, Ashton didn't want to spend more time up here than necessary.

  While they were walking down the stairs, Oliver was excitedly looking at his newly acquired skills, already trying to figure out what he should do next. The rest of his party, the ones that had joined up here at least, were visibly relieved that he finally got his class. Oliver probably levelled up once or twice as well from the bits and pieces of experience that had nowhere to go before now.

  Soon, a bundle of items appeared in his hands as he accepted the reward of the main quest.

  "Hehe, just you wait, man! I'll catch up to you soon enough! You know, magic user to magic user," Oliver said smugly, looking through his items. The others rolled their eyes and laughed a bit, but what Ashton said next surprised them.

  "For all I know, you actually might."

  "Huh?" John let out. "What do you mean, he might?"

  "He learned how to use magic in under a week. There's a reason why I gave him a chance to earn a magic class. Calling him a prodigy wouldn't be much of a stretch." Ashton wasn't lying, either. In a world with as little mana as earth and with minimal assistance, learning how to actually use magic was a surreal ordeal. Ashton doubted he would have been able to learn magic much faster if he had been given the chance back then.

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  "Uh... was that really all that impressive, though? All he did was turn some candles green," John pointed out. The issue clearly wasn't that he wanted to downplay Oliver's achievement, but that he didn't quite understand the magnitude of what just happened.

  "John, Oliver just briefly made contact with a primordial, forgotten deity. Sure, he's learned all the techniques and stuff beforehand, but that's not something that you can do just every day," Ashton explained. "And even if the Bornless One hadn't appeared, what happened just now was-"

  Oliver interrupted Ashton confused. "Wait, what? I actually called on the Bornless One? They were there just now? Seriously? I summoned a god?"

  With a scoff, Ashton shook his head. "No, you didn't 'summon a god'. You called on a divine being's consciousness. Gods are beings that we can't really understand fully, they work with different rules. But generally, when a god looks somewhere or focuses their attention on something, there's a trace. A sort of manifestation of their existence. That's basically what you called earlier."

  Jacky slowly began to stutter.

  "Oh-oh holy shit, so gods are actually real? Like, all of them? Or just the Bornless One?"

  Ashton thought about that answer for a moment. "Well, I don't actually know. Probably not all of them, but a good few, certainly. But again, gods are complicated. Some just come into existence and then people notice them at some point, others are created when something latches onto the collective consciousness of the belief that people hold. That doesn't mean that all the gods we believe in are real, nor that we know about all of the gods that are real. Does that makes sense?"

  At first, Ashton thought that none of the gods people believed in were possibly real. Without mana, that collective consciousness couldn't take hold, nor could a divine being possibly reveal itself to others. Though that might just be his biased view of having learned about the existence of gods in a world where mana was second nature. He had no idea how divinity actually worked, plus if earth had magic in the past, then he could throw away all of his preconceived notions in the first place.

  "So you're saying collective consciousness actually has power? Like it's a measurable force?" Oliver wondered, and Ashton was glad he asked that.

  "For sure. That's actually what the Bornless One got rid of earlier. Thought has power. It's a real force. Usually, through mana, it can actually take form. Gods aren't the only ones that borrow ideas and faith to take a tangible form. I imagine that myths of ghosts probably come from exactly that." He started, slowly stepping outside where some tables were still standing. The group sat down at one of them, curiously listening to Ashton's explanation.

  Oliver was the first to continue asking, "So that's the 'gunk' you mentioned? Thought? But I thought we didn't have any mana before that it could take form through."

  "Right, if we didn't have mana, how would ghosts suddenly pop up?" John added.

  Ashton smiled and took a cigarette out of his pocket, and then pointed at the pixie sitting on his head. "I mentioned it before, but Poppy here is sort of proof that we did have magic in the past. So I don't actually know how much mana there was lingering here just before the system integration happened. If it was even a minuscule amount, it could have been enough for our thoughts to cling to, but not enough to take concrete form. So... weird whispers, creepy feelings, that sort of thing would have been seldomly possible. And then as for our other thoughts, specifically negative thoughts, will have just stuck around everywhere. And now that mana is a thing, those thoughts were picked up and mixed in with the mana, but at least this area here was cleansed of that."

  Oliver seemed smug when he heard that. "Isn't that pretty awesome? I did something like that for my first time using magic?"

  "It is pretty impressive." Ashton agreed.

  John and Jacky looked at each other for a moment, feeling a little out of the loop. "So what exactly does that do?"

  "Huh? Oh, nothing."

  Oliver's smile immediately dropped. "Wait, what? But you just said it's impressive."

  Ashton sighed. "It is impressive, but that doesn't mean it's immediately useful. It's like... you know how in some labs, they'll make sure that everything is super clean and disinfected at all times? It's like that for magic. It's good if you don't want any interference for something super precise, but it's really not that useful for us right now. Especially because it's in an open area, so the contaminated mana will mix back in with the purified mana. The effect will be essentially gone by the morning."

  "Huh..."

  "Yup." Ashton smiled, looking at Oliver leaning onto his arm. The third picture showed Oliver without that exact arm. He should seriously investigate what that filter actually showed and keep an eye on Oliver.

  But for now, there was something else that he had to focus on more imminently. He wanted to finish the Observer's quest soon. And so, he took out the pieces of xantusi hide that he prepared earlier. Using some enchantments, he basically fast-tracked the process to turn them into usable leather.

  He had enough to make a few things out of it, though not enough for a full cloak. But if he was clever about it, maybe he wouldn't need something covering him head-to-toe anyway.

  With a slight smile, Ashton took out a notebook and began sketching down what he wanted to make to help him figure out what individual parts he had to prepare. He went and measured the pieces of leather as well, figuring that he would end up with some scraps of leather that might be useful for other things too.

  "Oh? You can draw?" Jacky asked surprised, looking over at the page. She was even more surprised when she saw what he was drawing. "... Are you coming up with a sewing pattern right now?"

  "Yes. I've got an item to make, and this is the best thing I can come up with right now," Ashton said, not even hiding how excited he was about this.

  "And you'll be using this? What even is it?" She wondered.

  "It's leather from a monster called 'Xantusi', a type of lizardman. You guys shouldn't have encountered one, since they're nocturnal. I'm using the leather to make an item that helps me stay hidden." Ashton explained, but Jacky didn't seem to really get the connection.

  "Uh... How are a leather jacket and a belt going to help with that?"