You have completed a Side Quest: Slay the Kinglet of Filth.

  You have earned the following Rewards: 150 Essence, 10 gold, one Epic Quality Item Upgrade Token, one Epic Skill Upgrade Token.

  Consequences: Upon exiting the Concept Realm, it will be destroyed and will not return for 12 days (Earth time). During that time, the creation of Dungeon Seeds and outside Minions, Lieutenants, and Bosses will be reduced by 80%.

  You have found: 1 Boss Core (F-Grade, Death, Poison, Pollution), 3 Minion Monster Cores (F-Grade, Poison, Pollution), 16 Gold, 113 Essence.

  You have found: HAZMAT Leggings (Epic, Leg Armor).

  Congratulations! Reaper’s Call has increased to Beginner 2.

  Unbound Essence: 2,696

  Roland checked his Monster Core holdings: he still had over a dozen of them despite using most of his early finds on the rituals that restored his cultivation. More importantly, he examined the leg armor, hoping he’d found a replacement for the puny Pants of the Wandering Monk.

  HAZMAT Leggings (Epic Leg Armor, F-Grade)

  Durability: 450/450

  Significance: 0

  Description: A pair of loose-fitting, reflective yellow pants meant to be tucked inside boots.

  Inherent Traits:

  * Airtight Seal: When equipped, the leggings will form an airtight seal between them and any footwear and chest armor or clothing. As long as it is worn and it retains any durability, no hazardous material will make contact with the wearer’s skin.

  * Damage Resistance (Physical): 20 points. The leggings will reduce physical damage and equivalent momentum from attacks by the designated amount. This reduction will apply before any modifiers for critical hits and hit location are applied. Physical attacks with an average damage below 20 will inflict no damage and their speed and momentum will be reduced to zero upon striking the pants.

  Limitations: This protection only applies to the area covered by the pants. Armor-piercing abilities and traits will modify the Damage Resistance accordingly.

  * Damage Resistance (Hazardous Materials): 30 points. The garment will reduce Acid, Fire, Heat, Radiation and Toxic attacks (this includes both natural and Concept-based attacks, Skills, Techniques or Traits) by the designated amount. All other effects and limitations are identical to Damage Resistance (Physical). Damage from those sources will be 50% less effective in terms of reducing the leggings’ Durability (the wearer will take damage normally).

  * Self-Repair: The leggings will regain lost Durability at the rate of 10 points per hour. Repair Skills and Techniques will have their effects increased by 100% when used on the item.

  Yellow pants it is, Roland thought, equipping the leggings.

  The combo was as much of an eyesore as he thought. It was a good thing that he never cared much about his looks. Being able to wade in a vat of acid while keeping the family jewels safe seemed like a good tradeoff for looking like a biker moonlighting as a clown who forgot to change all his work clothes.

  Besides, I could use one of my Tokens and change it into something better, not to mention better-looking. But only if there isn’t something else I should upgrade first.

  He noticed that Bob was wearing the same pair of Epic pants, and it looked just as ridiculous combined with his Gustav breastplate and the tactical helmet with NVGs that he had upgraded to Rare status with some of his tokens.

  Dungeons will drop duplicates, Roland noted. Interesting. I guess Legendary stuff is more likely to be unique.

  He also noted that only one Skill had gained a level-up. Reaper’s Call. He’d used it for the first time in the fight and figured he might pick up a couple of levels. One was better than none, of course.

  Not enough challenge. Advancement is going to slow down until the System tries harder to kill me.

  “You have to open the chest,” Bob said, pointing at the large chest that had replaced the splattered remains of the Kinglet of Filth. “Only the party leader can open it for some reason. Everyone gets a personalized reward.”

  “This is the biggest chest we’ve seen,” Barton added in a reverent tone. “Bigger than the one we got for the level clear. We all got Epic items, Epic Upgrade Tokens, and over two hundred Essence each. I’ve got enough to hit level five already, but this chest might carry me to six or seven.”

  “Remember not to level up too quickly,” Roland warned them. “If you don’t wait until your best Skills are at Beginner 5, you will find it harder to raise them. Higher Skills also influence what kind of Class upgrades may be available.”

  “Is that how you got a Legendary Class?” Barton asked.

  “Not exactly, but having most of my go-to Skills and Techniques at five or higher didn’t hurt.”

  “Okay, we hear you, Captain Death,” Dahlia told him. “Just open the chest before Barton has a nerd rage episode.”

  Barton pushed his imaginary glasses back on his head. “I do not nerd rage.”

  Dahlia laughed at him. “You went full Boogie2988 that time Bob threw six fire lizards at us.”

  “Fire lizards are lone hunters!”

  “I rest my case.”

  “I’m opening the damn chest,” Roland said.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  You have opened a Silver Chest, your reward for fully clearing the Second Floor.

  Reward downgrade! For your absence during the clearing of most of the Second Floor, your reward has been downgraded to a Bronze Chest.

  Bloodline of the Death Bringer has triggered! Contents of the Bronze Chest have been upgraded and combined into a single Legendary Quality item. All other items, gold and Essence rewards have been absorbed by the System to generate the item.

  You have found a Legendary Item: Scythe of the Reaper (Weapon Attachment).

  Roland went from thinking This is total BS to going What the heck? And finally, to Okay, this is different.

  Scythe of the Reaper (Legendary Polearm Weapon Attachment)

  The scythe is the classical weapon and tool of Reapers, heralds, agents, and bringers of Death. An unwieldy weapon under most circumstances, in the hands of a Reaper it can render judgments with unstoppable finality.

  Prerequisites: The Scythe Symbol must be attached to a Rare or higher-Quality polearm (a striking weapon with a metal head attached to a long shaft, meant to be used two-handed). The weapon’s Quality will not change, but the Inherent Traits of the Attachment will perform as if delivered by a Legendary weapon.

  Significance: 250 (only when wielded by someone with a Reaper Class). If the weapon it is attached to already has a Significance pool, it will be increased by that amount.

  Inherent Traits:

  * Increased Damage: The weapon’s basic attacks will inflict (Strength + Willpower) points of Physical Damage and (Willpower) points of Death-attuned damage. If the weapon’s basic attacks inflict more damage, this Trait will add a 25% bonus instead.

  * The Reaping: Activating this Trait consumes 5 Significance and 50 Mana. The weapon will temporarily transform into a Reaper’s Scythe and its next blow will be 50% likelier to hit and 50% more difficult to avoid. On a successful strike, the Scythe will inflict 50% of the target’s Health as Death-attuned damage in addition to the weapon’s basic damage. The total damage will be reduced by the target’s defenses and Damage Resistance.

  The Reaping can further be augmented by a Single Skill or Technique. Any damage will be added to the base attack. Other modifiers will work accordingly.

  At F-Grade or Tin Rank, the Reaping has a cooldown of ten seconds.

  I actually came ahead on this deal, Roland decided. Once again, my Bloodline steps up.

  He summoned the Naginata of Benkei as well as his reward, a black token with a stylized silver grim reaper in its classical rendition: a cowled skeleton wielding a scythe. Then he brought out his remaining Legendary Item Upgrade Token – and his Mythic Item Upgrade Token, the reward for killing Hatsuko.

  She did me so many favors, unwillingly and unwittingly, he thought. Maybe that balances her karmic debt to me. If someone asks me, I’d say we’re about even now. Well, after I put her Revenant to good use. Then we’re even.

  He looked at the four items and sent them back to his inventory. No way he was just going to activate them and let the System figure it out. This kind of reward demanded a ritual circle and maybe some Essence expenditure to synergize all the bonuses. Or even a Bloodline Vision, tap into the wisdom of his predecessors and produce a top-tier Mythic. And turn the naginata into something he could carry through multiple Ranks. Or even all the way to Ascended status.

  I’ll do the same for the jacket when I get the chance. The helmet is cool but might not make the cut later on. But my father’s jacket deserves to come along on my journey.

  He turned to Raven to ask his opinion and realized the bird had disappeared at some point after Roland went after the Boss. Freaking mysterious super-spirits and their bizarre ways. Since those bizarre ways had saved his ass and gotten him some much-needed payback, he wasn’t going to complain about them. Much.

  Everyone was oohing and aahing about their rewards. A quick check at their Party showed they all had gotten three to four hundred Essence on top of what they had earned from the Quest and Boss. The rewards were based on their performance during the floor clear.

  Everyone had earned over two hundred Essence before he opened the chest. Bob was right behind Roland with two-fifty-eight Essence from the Boss and four hundred for the chest. Probably because his magical shields had helped everyone. Dahlia and Barton were tied for third place at Six hundred and forty Essence apiece after everything was added up. The Hennessys lagged behind by forty and seventy points respectively.

  At least it doesn’t seem like I’m borking their progress too badly, he thought. Then again, maybe they would have gained even more if Roland hadn’t been there.

  As it was, everyone now had enough Essence to reach mid-Grade, even Dahlia, who had enough banked up to hit two levels at once. Level five provided a nice bump in power and a chance to upgrade one’s Class. The chance was higher the lower the quality of the original Class was, so he didn’t expect the Epic and Legendary Classers to get many or any choices.

  Almost everyone was too busy looking at their bling to think about leveling up. Everybody had gotten a ring or a necklace. They also gained either an armor piece they needed, or a new weapon. Specialized loot, too: a new card for Dahlia, two Hex scrolls for Barton, a Rune enhancer for Bob’s shield. All that plus a couple of Epic Item or Skill Upgrade Tokens or one Legendary Item Upgrade Token.

  And sixty gold apiece. Between them they had earned well almost two million soon-to-be-worthless bucks.

  The lone exceptions to their happy awed state were the Hennessy siblings. Wendy was worriedly watching Josh stare off into space. His lips moved every once in a while. Maybe he occasionally forgot that he didn’t need to say words out loud during a telepathic conversation. Probably did the same thing when he tried to read something.

  I’m beginning to think that he might be special needs rather than simply dumb as a rock, Roland thought, feeling bad for all his unkind thoughts towards the guy. On the other hand, Josh was an a-hole independently of his IQ, so he didn’t feel that bad.

  Wendy looked at Roland. “Can you do something?” she asked him. “Help him?”

  Thanks, Raven, Roland thought. The bird would have been a big help navigating this mess. What am I supposed to do now?

  What he wanted to do was hang out with his party and have everyone describe all the good things they’d earned for their hard work. And then work on a ritual that would turn his naginata into something that would make Mjolnir look like something you tossed back in your toolbox when you were done hammering nails.

  Instead, he walked toward Josh. “Okay, bro. We need to have a little talk.”

  “Yes, we do,” Josh said.

  Or rather, Josh’s mouth moved, and something else spoke through Josh. The weight and reverb weren’t as strong as Raven’s when he got serious, but it was in the ballpark.

  Reaper’s Insight!

  He focused his Third Eye on Josh. The weird shadow effect eye-blocked him, but Roland had put some thought on the matter after his first attempt.

  Meditating, Roland went into his Pattern and focused on his Svarga Dantian.

  It wasn’t easy. Trying to access it sent his perceptions off in bizarre directions.

  One moment, the world around him shrunk down and warped into a needle taller than a mountain. He stood on top of it, nearly overcome with vertigo as nonsensical space flowed around him.

  On the next, he was watching everybody’s internal organs, neatly laid out on a flat space, all still connected and working happily.

  It took all his Willpower to focus on what he wanted. Josh in his elfin-goblinoid glory. When he did, his Svarga-enhanced senses sidestepped the shadowy blocks like they weren’t there. The blocks were like lines on a piece of paper, and he was seeing the entire drawing, the lines encircled.

  The first thing Roland saw was a ring Josh had kept hidden from view until he changed the rules. It glowed with dark Fae energies. And the dumbass had just put on a necklace with the same frequency, which redoubled the mystic bandwidth of the Fae pulling his strings.

  Josh’s Middle Dantian had grown something like a Core, except unlike the solid circle of a Class Core up in his chest, this one looked like a spiny seed. Like an energy burr that had sunk its tiny claws into Josh’s spiritual crossroads.

  Roland turned to Wendy and noticed a similar growth in the same Dantian, only hers looked more like a germinating seed, like a chestnut that was cracking open, tiny roots beginning to emerge out of it. Its energy had a greenish-brown hue that made him think of well-mulched earth and growing trees.

  Josh’s was full of sharp edges, and whispers of dark things slithering through shadows.

  “All right, whatever you are,” Roland told Josh’s puppet master. “Start talking, or we’re going to have us an intervention.”