Before the world ended and the system and magic came to this world, Eli would have been too self-conscious to lay naked as people were walking towards him. But now, he was around 6’ 6” with basically no body fat and he was nicely muscled, not like he was a body builder, but more like an olympian. His ‘little Eli’ had grown with his height and was now something he knew no one would be ashamed of, so he was pretty confident that laying there was the right choice. But he didn’t want to startle the people approaching, or have them think he was dead so he started softly humming and tapping a foot. They immediately got quiet and stopped moving, he could feel their magic even though they weren’t even close enough to see down the ramp he was laying on.

  There were five of them, they felt like their magic was somewhat aligned with each other, they had probably been a group since the tutorial. He didn’t feel like he needed to know too much about them so he didn’t pry any further, he just kept humming and tapping his foot as they slowly got closer. Their formation was weak and one sided, it seemed like one of them didn’t spread out far enough, maybe they weren’t as practiced as he thought. Finally they seemed set and the one who was a tanky sword and shield guy took a few more steps and spoke.

  “Hey, who are you?”

  Eli didn’t move, but stopped humming long enough to respond, “who are you?”

  “I’m asking the questions, who are you and what are you doing here?”

  “Seeing as your the one who is outmatched, I believe your the one answering the questions.” Eli was not speaking loudly, he was calm and his tone almost sounded bored. Even though he wasn’t speaking loudly, all five of them heard him as if he was standing in front of them. Its a will trick he taught himself, all he has to do is put a bit of will and intent into his words and whoever he wants to hear them can. It had sharp distance limits, but it was handy for intimidation like this.

  “Outmatched? Do you have any idea who I am?”

  Eli decided that this was going to be more fun than he thought, “Why would I know who you are when you don’t?”

  “What?, I know who I am.”

  “Then why are you asking me?”

  “My name…”

  “I don’t care, just keep quiet and stay out of my sun and everything will be fine.”

  The man fumed for a second, but seemed to collect himself, “At least cover up, some of my party members are ladies.” he said in a pretentious voice, as if he was talking to a monkey that was resisting training.

  “You have two women with you and if they are ladies, they won’t look.” He was still laying down in the same spot as when they had walked up on him but now the other four were standing with the leader guy and whispering as if he couldn’t hear them. To sum them up, the men in the group were offended but hesitant, one of the women was just kind of staring at him and the other was saying how rude and brutish he was, but was also having trouble not looking at him.

  They huddled and discussed and then he said, “this is our bathing pond, we normally charge for usage but if you leave now so we can use it, consider it… on-the-house.” the man practically bit his own tongue saying that last part. It seemed like he was just one of those money loving types who can never say no to charging people for things.

  “I tell you what, I’ll stay here until I’m done using this area. Then, IF and only IF you tell me where the raid dungeon is in this zone, I’ll leave in peace.” Eli put a little will into some of the words again emphasizing them and when he did, it was clear that one of the women and one of the men in the group realized something then because their magic shuttered. It was the magic equivalent of getting a shiver down your spine. His small bit of will usage had resonated with them somehow, which made Eli forget about everything he was doing and focus on them.

  “And if we do not tell you?” the leader said as if to say, what are you gonna do about it?

  “Then when I leave, it won’t be peaceful.” Eli responded, still speaking softly and calmly.

  “I think we should just leave him be and we go bathe over there.” the girl who had been basically drooling over him said. The ramp to get into the water was only about 30 feet wide so she wasn’t wanting to go too far away. She had been one of the ones whose magic shuttered after he used his will, it seemed like she wanted to make peace without telling the leader that she thought he would lose in a fight.

  “Don’t mind me, I’ll just be here if any of you care to introduce yourselves.”

  The five walked to the other side of the ramp and started removing gear and prepping to get in the water. The three males of the group took turns watching Eli as if them noticing something would somehow save them. When the one watching him, who had two daggers on his hips, he was maybe a rogue or assassin of some kind, looked away, Eli blinked so that he was standing near the waters edge. He wasn’t any closer to them and was even facing away from them a bit, but not being able to see him move made the one watching nervous. He quickly got the attention of the others as if they were going to fight him for standing near the water. They paused, looked at him, then went back to removing gear.

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  The more proper, at least on the outside, of the two women walked over to Eli in just normal clothes with no weapon. She looked him up and down and had a glazed look in her eye as if she had forgotten why she was there, then she shook her head and spoke up.

  “Sir, my name is Gwen,” she turned and pointed to each person, “That is Stacy, and those three are just some guys we know. We make them turn around while we bathe and you should do the same.” Gwen said. Eli was shocked at how dismissive she was to the men in her group, as if they only existed for her. Not happy with her attitude he decided to be a little mean.

  “Gwen, my name is Ash, I would happily turn away from you since Stacy is the one I want to look at anyways. You have nothing to fear from me, nothing about you is worth my time.”

  He was expecting her to glow bright red with fury and demand that her gaggle of simps attack him, but she just turned around and slowly walked away. Gwen was rather plain looking, she would be on magazine covers in the old world but she hadn’t done much to improve herself, no body or soul upgrades. Stacy had at least done one level of each and was a decent level if he had to guess. The reaction puzzled him, but he was playing a game, and the name of that game was, ‘make the guy in love with Stacy jealous’. The game was just starting but he felt a tremble in the man's magic, the one who had felt his will. He wanted to know what that was because it would determine how he uses his will in the future.

  The two women got in the water with their clothes on, swam out to the middle of the hole, and then removed their clothes and swam and laughed. They were mostly talking about how the men in their group were too nice and just all around plain and about how hot they thought Eli was. He could hear them so he smirked a few times while they were talking and glanced at them. Finally, the three guys came to talk to him. As they walked up he put his ape underwear on, his nudity had been to throw them off and maybe show off a bit since he wasn’t used to being this attractive to women.

  The shield guy spoke first, “I’m Ben, this is Kyle, and that is James.”

  Eli looked at him and smiled while putting his hand out to shake, “I’m Ash, this place is pretty far from a safezone, what brings you guys out here?”

  “We have our own reasons, we are capable enough that we don’t need to stay in a safe zone. Are you traveling alone?”

  “Yes, I’m out here testing and upgrading some skills before heading for the raid dungeon of this area. Would you happen to know where it is?” The man still had not shaken his hand so Eli brought his hand back to his side then rested his hands by hooking his thumbs into the front lip of his fuzzy underwear. This was an old habit, since he wasn’t allied to put his hands in his pockets in the military, he would rest his hands on his belt this way.

  “We might.” Ben paused and cleared his throat, “it could save you a lot of time, what's the information worth to you?”

  “Nothing.” Eli said without hesitation and while letting his eyes return to their true state. He had learned before he left that he could suppress the effect that his transcendence had on his eyes. It took conscious effort but with enough practice, he got the hang of it. It wasn’t something he could do while fighting since it did take a lot of focus. His eyes went from normal white on the outside, purple irises, and black pupils, to being all black with what looked like galaxies deep inside, like his eyes were a hole into space. There was a purple ring of color to denote his irises, this is how you could tell where he was looking, but the ring was freefloating in the deep space of the rest of his eyes.

  The three took a step back and drew weapons, “What are you?”

  “Well, have you heard of Lords?”

  “Like nobility from the old world?” Kyle asked.

  “I’ve met one of the lords of the safe zone up north, he didn’t have eyes like that, or this kind of magical presence.” James said with a little fear leaking into his voice.

  “Correct, I’m something beyond that, but that's not important. What is important is where that raid dungeon is.” Eli said.

  “You just said it wasn’t important.” Ben said.

  “Not important to me, but telling me about it is important… to you.” Eli said that last part with a bit of arrogance that he recognized from Bethany. When he paused to investigate himself, she had felt that he was around people and was pushing her own attitude into him. Whether it was to keep him out of trouble, or push him into it he wasn’t sure, probably both. His thoughts drifted to how he was going to punish her, but he snapped his focus back quickly.

  James put his two handed axe away on his back, which looked like it was held there with magnets or something and pointed east. Kyle put his daggers away, but Eli had seen one in his sleeve which was ready so he didn’t dismiss the man. Ben sighed and put his shield down, but not his sword.

  “Thank you James, I still have business here until dark, but you are welcome to stay,” Eli looked over to where the women were swimming. “The view is very nice at the moment.”

  “I can’t believe you prefer Stacy to Gwen,” Kyle said, seemingly completely relaxed and casual.

  “I prefer forward, competent, and driven women. They know what they want and know how to get it, it saves on all that dancing around dating stuff.” Eli said chuckling to himself a bit since he hadn’t really thought about it until that moment but both Bethany and Tara were those things in their own way.

  “And you think that's Stacy?” Kyle said. “She doesn’t seem that way to me.”

  “That’s because you aren’t what she wants.” Eli said with a smile and went to put a supportive hand on his shoulder. This was the moment Kyle had been waiting for and he stabbed Eli under that arm puncturing through his ribs and hitting the bottom of his right lung. Eli’s eyes widened and right after that blow, Ben’s sword stuck into Eli’s back again going between ribs and into his right lung. James drew his axe but didn’t do anything with it.

  Ben leaned in as he twisted his sword, “You are going to leave and pray that we never see you again, those girls are ours.”