Amber’s head spun.

  She had expected a lot of things, but not this. How did Frei’s casual actions turn into a city guard wanting to join the Arcane Council? No, not even that, the worst part is that Amber herself was not even a member, and even worse was that most members highly desired to kill her. Yet this person wanted to join them?

  Her silence, seemed to trigger the red-haired woman as she started to fervently explain herself.

  “I’m plenty strong, you saw it yourself. I can even cast Level 300 magic with some help!” she pleaded. “Moreover, I have little to no ties to the world at large, only my position as a city guard, so please!”

  Amber felt a headache coming on as the woman continued. She grabbed her head with pain as the woman continued.

  “Look, I know you guys already turned me down a month ago, but this time I have something that will make it worth your while!”

  “We turned you down a month ago?” Amber looked at her with confusion.

  She blinked. “Yeah? I thought you knew, considering how you were reacting. Could it be you’re the leader of a different squad so you don’t know about it?”

  “You could say that.”

  “Then, there’s even less reason to reject me!” She piped up. “I have an artifact that will certainly interest you?— or… maybe not.”

  The woman trailed off thinking.

  “The chief said you were some bigshot so maybe something of that rarity isn’t exactly rare in your eyes…”

  “Why do you even want to join? It’s not as great as it sounds,” Amber was genuinely baffled.

  In her eyes, any member that joined and had any significance was basically wrapped with layers upon layers of curses and made to swear an oath of loyalty like Frei. In fact, Frei’s level of freedom actually seemed higher than the average member considering her reports were treated as annoying rather than anything.

  The woman pursed her lips. “The other guy said that as well… but I have my reasons.”

  “What reasons?” Amber raised her brow.

  Hearing her, the woman let out a self-mocking laugh. “You are the most friendly Arcane Council member I’ve ever met. The other group just told me it wasn’t possible and to leave them alone lest I wanted to die.”

  Sounds about right, Amber nodded. The Arcane Council members she had met ?— aside from Frei ?— were less than amiable.

  “The reason is rather simple really, I recently acquired some… power but I can’t really control it. Moreover every time I use it it destroys my body, and while I’m not entirely certain, it should be related to Primordial Spirits. So I’m hoping your organization can help me resolve my issues.”

  “Right.”

  “And for that, I’m even willing to give you the divine artifact in my possession.”

  Amber’s ears rang for a moment. A divine artifact? That certainly interested her, but at the same time, she wasn’t about to swindle this person into joining some fake Arcane Council to acquire it. She wasn’t an Arcane Council member to begin with.

  “Is it some kind of curse?” she finally asked. “From the looks of it you aren’t even interested in the primordials themselves all too much.”

  The red-haired woman pursed her lips. “I’m not interested much, you are right. But I know one thing for certain, this is something that only the Arcane Council can help me resolve based on my research.”

  “I see.”

  Amber took a moment to think, before asking.

  “Does the other squad know this is related to the primordials?”

  Confusion flashed across the woman’s face for a moment before a knowing smile appeared. “No, they told me to fuck off before I could even get to that part. When I tried to explain they almost beheaded me.”

  “Okay, so no other Arcane Council member aside from me knows about it?” Amber asked.

  “That’s right.”

  Amber didn’t know if the woman thought she was about to join or what, since her eyes were basically sparkling at this point. But that was beside the point. More importantly, Amber’s own interest was piqued.

  “Show me the power you speak of,” she finally said, pulling out a potion that she had looted off thee Shattered Tower. “If it hurts you just need to drink this.”

  The woman took it and then, moments later her eyes widened. It was a recovery potion, one with incredible effects. But even with it, she quickly hesitated.

  “We’re in public, if it were to go out of control then…”

  “Explain it to me first then,” Amber said simply. “Then we can go from there.”

  “R-Right, yeah!”

  The woman nodded enthusiastically and proceeded to explain.

  The conversation was rather long. Apparently, she could summon black flames that were basically inextinguishable by everyone except her, but they would cause irreparable damage to her body.

  Initially, she had been certain her body had acquired the ability to wield some powerful curse, but upon consulting with a cursed class wielder they seemed convinced it wasn’t one. After all, those who wield cursed classes are immune to curses, yet they would get deeply hurt by these flames.

  However, she was also certain the power was not based on magic in spite of consuming mana. It used no runes?— nothing. Which is also why it troubled her, because sometimes it would flare up within her body, causing her unbearable pain.

  Aside from the flaring part, the fact that it could hurt curse users, and the fact that it wasn’t based on magic reminded her of something.

  “You know my class right?” Amber asked.

  The woman nodded. “Cursed Berserker? Yeah I know it, but now that you mention it. Why would you disguise your level and give it a class that’s clearly a basic class and not a class fitting level 240?”

  Amber ignored her question. “I am a curse user too, so I want you to pay close attention to this.”

  With a gold coin in hand, she held it before the woman and immediately used the Curse of Disintegration on it. Immediately, the coin began to reduce into nothing, not even leaving smoke, and along with it Amber’s fingers began to experience the same thing.

  The sight made the woman’s eyes widen, and finally, Amber finished. Her hand healed on its own, as she continued.

  “This is a curse, yet it harms me. Did the curse class user that you consulted said that it feels like a curse or anything?”

  At her question, the woman slowly nodded. “He did… but he was also in denial due to the fact that he could well… be harmed by it.”

  The confirmation, made Amber quite sure of something. Specially after she intently focused on the woman. There, she could sense the presence of a curse?— a very powerful one. With that, she was certain. The mage before her, had the ability to use an incredibly powerful curse. A curse that clearly heralded from Ill’hine. And more importantly, a curse that could help Amber herself get stronger.

  Amber grinned, meeting her surprised gaze.

  “I have good news for you: I can help you fix your problem.”

  * * *

  Time passed and Amber inquired more information of the woman. Her name was Alyssa, and she was a mage specializing in explosions made with fire magic. And the reason her hostility had basically vanished after Amber told her to wait until she’s done bathing if she wanted to fight was rather simple.

  In Alyssa’s view, she was ready for a deadly confrontation given the warning she had received a month ago. But she also felt it necessary to try her luck again given Amber wasn’t in the squad of a month ago. As for trying to provoke Amber, or whatever? According to her she wanted to appear cold.

  It was… an odd situation, but explained the dissonance in Amber’s mind. As for the origin of Alyssa’s troubles? To her surprise, the power the Explosion Mage had acquired came from none other than the Shattered Tower. It had apparently been some sort of special reward.

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  But rather than getting it in some sort of curse bottle, Alyssa had received it directly into her body? Amber barely understood it.

  For starters, Alyssa didn’t have any black fire skills as entries in her System or even curse related skills. Which gave Amber two theories. One was that the power was finite, just like the initial Curse of Disintegration she had gotten. Meaning that Alyssa could only output a certain amount of this black fire before she lost it forever. The other theory was that it was infinite; in which case the only way to get “rid” of it would be for the user to master it or for another powerful curse user to suppress it. If it was the latter, whether Alyssa wanted it or not, she was already part curse user, if it was the former it’d be a lot easier to deal with.

  Now, Amber was fully sincere in helping Alyssa with this plight, because it also meant helping herself. That said, Alyssa’s enthusiasm was… something else.

  “I can’t believe I’m going to receive help from you without even joining the organization,” she said with sparkling eyes.

  Amber frowned, looking at the woman standing a few meters away from her. They were outside the city. At some point, she had wondered whether Alyssa had just been pretending, and even knew of Amber’s actual identity, but from the looks of it she really didn’t.

  “Oh, by the way, are you sure you should be spending time with me here?” She asked, confused. “When I overheard the other group they implied they’d return around these times.”

  Amber frowned, and thought for a moment, but then shook her head. “It should be fine. Our missions are separate.”

  Then, Amber turned to the woman and spoke seriously.

  “More importantly, I don’t have that much time right now, so let’s get on with working with your problem.”

  Alyssa nodded. “Alright, then just watch.”

  With great concentration, and holding her staff Alyssa ignited some wood that was set up not too far away. Immediately it began to consume like a raging inferno, but more importantly, the caster?— dropped to the ground in deep pain.

  Amber quickly used Inexorable Manipulation on the curse, but even with the Skill being at 5th Rank level 10, it barely stopped it from spreading. After that, she took a look at Alyssa but she wasn’t on fire. Far from it, in fact. There were almost no curses acting on her body except for some internal ones that Amber quickly suppressed.

  Her pale complexion quickly recovered, as she looked over at Amber.

  “What now?”

  “Hm, well for now you just need to watch,” Amber stated simply.

  Her words, got her a confused look as she walked over at the raging black fire. But ultimately, Amber wasn’t too concerned about what the other party thought. In her opinion, this step would certainly help with solving the mage’s problem.

  So, with a deep breath, she stuck her hand into the fire. The flames, immediately leapt on her hand and greedily began to consume it, not only that but they were quickly trying to climb up her arm.

  “W-What are you doing?!” Alyssa called in a panic. “Wait a moment, I’ll do my best to extinguish it.”

  Amber waved her free hand off. “No need, this is part of the plan.”

  Moments later, the fire climbing up her arm considerably slowed down. But Inexorable Manipulation sadly couldn’t fully control it so eventually it would spread to other parts of her. It was painful, but on the bright side it was a lot less painful than the Curse of Disintegration, specially because her constant healing and constant attempts to supress the curses’ strength was enough to prevent it from fully consuming her being.

  The sight, made Alyssa confused as she stared.

  “So… what happens now?” she finally asked.

  “This is a curse, I just need to master it and then eventually extinguish it off my body.” Amber then tilted her head. “Though, extinguishing it will be a bit annoying, but I’ll worry about that later.”

  “Right.”

  “Once I can use this curse myself, I should be able to control it much better; which means i should be able to help you. And if my curse manipulation related skill ranks up enough I may even be able to completely solve your problem,” Amber explained patiently. “So the first real step before we can focus on you is for me to learn to use the curse that you use, in reality.”

  Hearing that Alyssa slowly nodded, but it still looked as if she had swallowed a fly as she stared at Amber’s flaming arm.

  “How will you get back into the fortress with that on you?” she asked.

  Amber thought for a moment then pondered. “Guess I won’t.”

  “Ah…”

  The red-haired mage looked shocked, but before it could escalate Amber quickly called out to her.

  “By the way, could you call over Frei? I’ll tell you where she’s at.”

  “Your companion?”

  “Yeah my companion.”

  With that, Amber gave the mage directions. And a short thirty minutes later, Frei stood before Amber. The fire at this point was over at Amber’s bicep and slowly climbing, which clearly made Alyssa nervous, but it wasn’t anything to worry about.

  “So, I’ll be here for a few days,” Amber gestured. “Since I can’t really move.”

  Frei nodded. “Alright, well. I’ll let you know as I finish parts of the bone schematics so you can make the conduits.”

  Amber smiled, but before she could say anything Alyssa called out.

  “Bone schematics?”

  Frei glanced over, and taking the girl’s already shocked expression she quickly grinned.

  “My master over here plans to engrave thousands of runes into her very bones, which means we’ll have to carve them and insert conduits into them.”

  Hearing that Alyssa went pale. As a mage, it was evident she knew what it all signified, specially the pain of carving one’s bone. But Amber, didn’t really care for her reaction and instead quickly told Frei about the previous Arcane Council squad and how they were meant to return soon, then finally she focused on the curse that was consuming her body. It was the Curse of Eternal Flames. Unlike the Curse of Ash she found in the Shattered Tower, it didn’t seem to have any stopping point.

  And so, just like that, time passed as Amber was consumed by the black flames.

  [Curse Resistance has leveled up from 6th Rank level 5 to 6th Rank level 6.]

  …

  * * *

  Alyssa had held great expectations when an Arcane Council member had offered to help her resolve her problem. After all, even if it wasn’t the most high-profile organization out there, the Arcane Council was still the Arcane Council. Moreover, the fact that a powerhouse like Amber was assisting her made her feel such confidence. Even now, Alyssa didn’t know her true level.

  After all, the level one needed to single-handedly and effortlessly suppress multiple level 200+ experts without taking a single scratch was massive. It was very likely this woman was at the very least Level 400. Individuals of that level were extremely rare throughout the world, and pretty much every single had their own legend. To reach such accumulation of strength would take centuries!

  So the fact that someone as old and wise and powerful as Amber was assisting Alyssa made her feel over the moon. Moreover, usually people that were this strong had peculiar personalities based on what she heard, yet Amber was nothing but kind, and her confidence in solving the issue was something else. She had even began to doubt was Amber even an Arcane Council member.

  However, when the method to help her was revealed. She couldn’t help but short circuit. At this point it wasn’t about whether the fact that Amber was acting like an Arcane Council member; the eccentricity was certainly there. But rather, it was about the fact that she never could’ve fathomed what she was witnessing.

  Looking at the black fire creeping up over the girl’s shoulder she couldn’t help but pause, her mouth hanging open.

  “Is something the matter?” she asked, confused.

  Her expression was innocent, as if one of her extremities wasn’t constantly burning. Maybe she had a pain inhibition skill? But usually people didn’t really use them, after all?— feedback was important.

  “Do you perhaps have a Skill that makes so you don’t feel any pain?” she asked. “It looks painful.”

  Amber blinked before shaking her head. “I do have one, but as soon as I acquired it I modified the Skill to restore the pain function of its previous version. So I guess I just feel half the pain I’m supposed to all the time.”

  Then she frowned.

  “Huh, wait… doesn’t that make me kind of lame?”

  Alyssa hurriedly shook her head. “No, not at all. T-The cursed class person that helped me had a skill that also halved the pain and they still rolled on the ground and screamed.”

  “I mean, it does hurt quite a bit, but if I compare it to other things I experienced it’s nothing. Besides if I was afraid of this I wouldn’t consider etching my bones with runes,” she said simply.

  “R-Right…”

  Alyssa had forgotten about that. But the fact that Amber didn’t shut her pain reception even now was something else. Although, Skills weren’t absolute so it had been wise of her to not forget what pain felt like so maybe she always kept it on for a reason. Such were the lessons to be learnt from such a powerful figure. She committed that to heart, but now she couldn’t help but hesitate.

  Amber had explained her approach on how she would help her, but would such an approach even work?

  Alyssa looked at the Arcane Council member that seemed to be thinking about her own things, the flames were still steadily climbing.

  “Your entire body will be enveloped in it, moreover it will probably burn away your armor and other belongings…” she explained gently.

  “I can prevent it from burning my rings, as for my clothing…”

  Amber thought of something and soon a cloak appeared on her.

  “There, it’s technically fireproof so with some assistance it shouldn’t burn away.”

  With that she gave Alyssa a thumbs up with her fist covered in black flames. But rather than seeing bone she just saw blistering skin, and she couldn’t help but shift uncomfortably at the sight.

  “Anyway, you should do your own thing, this process will take time,” Amber gestured for her towards the fortress. “I doubt you want to keep me company here all day every day after all.”

  “Right… then if it’s not too much trouble I’ll leave for today.”

  With that, she shortly departed from Amber and arrived back at the Grand Fortress.

  In all honesty, she didn’t know what to think right now. On one hand, she probably wouldn’t join the Arcane Council, otherwise Amber would’ve already made efforts to recruit her, but on the other she was being helped. Which meant some form of payment was required, right? She had offered a Divine Artifact in exchange but… even now she was doubtful.

  As she made her way back to her home she was intercepted by an unexpected person.

  The elf from the Arcane Council, the Level 340 Mage that referred to Amber as Master. However, contrary to her friendly demeanor from earlier she looked serious.

  “Did the members of the Arcane Council you met the last month say anything about demons?”

  There was no greeting, just a serious question with a heavy atmosphere. It was clearly important, but as Alyssa tried to recall things, she came empty.

  “I don’t think I heard anything, in the first place they kind of hated me at first sight so I didn’t have much opportunity to interact,” she explained simply

  The elf clicked her tongue in annoyance “Then let’s hope that what I’m finding out is wrong or it’ll be a true shitfest.”

  With that she turned and cast her a meaningful glance.

  “Since Amber took a liking to you, just know this: things in the republic might just become worse in the near future.”

  Then she left, leaving Alyssa feeling complex emotions.

  And the next day wasn’t much better, because as she stared at a pile of black flames before her she couldn’t help but rub her eyes.

  “What’s up?”

  The black flames were speaking? and waving at her.