An hour or so after falling asleep under a starry sky, Miles stirred awake, feeling fresh and ready to get started on a whole new day.

  Or… well. A new night.

  Unsurprisingly, it was still dark, and the moon hadn’t even made it all the way up in the night sky. By his account, it wasn’t even midnight yet, and there were still plenty of dark hours ahead. As a Master—a tier-30 individual—Miles didn’t need as much sleep as most people. He could go a long time without it, especially if he were to indulge in some of his own concoctions, but considering he wasn’t fighting for his life nowadays, a nap was plenty enough. Of course, it was also more enjoyable and it gave him an excuse to have an extra breakfast. Plus, not to mention, it gave him a little break from all that was going on.

  Miles extricated himself out of the bag and took in a deep breath of fresh air. There had been issues non-stop ever since his exit, and his plans for a big relaxing break were not looking so great, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t afford some restful naps now and then.

  “I wonder if exiting from like… the 20th or 10th would have helped me sidestep this mess,” he muttered as he rubbed his forehead. He might have still needed to slip through the blockade, but it might have not attracted as much attention as someone leaving from the 30th.

  Sending his sleeping bag in storage, Miles washed up and pulled a fresh set of clothes before he summoned a carafe of still steaming coffee and a cup, which he coupled with some breakfast rolls and, as he ate, he considered his plan for the day as the stars twinkled far above.

  First, the Inquisitor and this Wanderer business. What was he to do with all of that?

  Miles chewed on the egg, cheese and pepper bread-roll, his brows slowly furrowing deeper as he reviewed the events of a few hours ago. Already, he regretted starting with this particular point. It was requiring him to think too much, and right now, he would rather not. But one thing was slowly becoming clearer.

  He should handle the final negotiation in the Dungeon. There was no need for him to iron out anything on the surface. Not when things had gotten this… complicated. His stay on the surface was supposed to be relaxing, and it was supposed to involve some farming, some family time, and maybe introducing some folks to the wonders of coffee and training some promising delvers here and there. That was what he had hoped for. What he hadn’t included in his scrapbook of the perfect vacation was the appearance of the Registry at his doorstep, with both news of an offer and of other Custodians popping out in the Dungeon.

  Miles still wanted to rest up and really immerse himself into a simpler life, at least for a short bit. It was just that some more business had to be taken care of before he could afford that, and with that in mind, he might as well make the most out of his ability. That meant meeting the Registry’s envoy within a loop. Where he would be at his strongest negotiating position. But now, there was another hiccup.

  He had taken an assignment to prove the capabilities of his new identity. He was supposed to sprint to the 11th and make his delivery. He still had plenty of time for that, of course, but he had to be careful with timing everything out.

  “Unless I’m dropping the fake identity stuff…”

  Miles had intended on buying some time with a new identity. Time to settle and get a break before inevitably conflict came to find him but just like Hazel had predicted, the circumstances were dragging him back into the Dungeon and its troubles. In fact, he was even tempted to just come out and reveal everything and deal with all the fallout once and for all, instead twisting himself into knots to keep his identities separate. If the final offer ended being good enough, he could do that and ride out the backlash until things mellowed down. Plus, it’s not as if he was going to be spared conflict if he kept to his new fake identity. Sooner or later, his activities would attract some unwanted attention, and trouble would find him. It was a constant in this world. Whether that was because of mere happenstances or once word of his activities reached the right ears, someone would come looking.

  “I’m just stalling,” he mumbled, glancing up at the starry sky. “Is this all even worth it at this point?”

  The freedom to drop all pretenses was certainly appealing.

  Miles sighed and sent the wrapper in storage so he wouldn’t litter in the Custodial Room. He had more time to consider things. For now, he’d better get started on something productive. After which he’d go and set up a meeting in the Dungeon, make sure Thalia and Lott are out of trouble, then go from there.

  Miles groaned in his throat, and lolled his head. It was too soon for these decisions. But now that he got to thinking about it, he couldn’t just backtrack.

  “Let’s put the fake identity stuff on hold for now. It’s dragging, and I need to resolve it soon, but I’ll come back to that later. For now… how do I set the meeting up?” he spoke to the silence around him. He eyed the fingers around his cup and lifted them one by one as he counted. “First, get a message to him. Preferably I’d drop in myself so he’d get moving fast. Worst case, I’ll have to wait for him on the 1st floor’s waystation. Best case scenario? He’s got his own Depth Sigil, and I’d meet him somewhere deeper,” Miles said, thinking out loud between bites.

  Just like there were emergency artifacts to quickly leave the Dungeon—like the one who’d ended up causing a disaster in Rivergate—there were ways to quickly reach deep floors. While Depth Sigils were rare, Miles wouldn’t be surprised if someone as important as Talon Ironvault had one though if he did, where would it take him?

  “So long as it’s at least past the 5th, it’d work for me,” Miles thought. While he still wanted to make the delivery, he mostly wanted to give himself access to the deeper floors and upgrade the Custodial Room’s mana as for Talon, Depth Sigils were specific to the floor in which they were recovered, and they were rare enough Miles didn’t think Talon had more than one. But even if he did have more than one, Miles just wanted a lower floor to meet at so he could get moving.

  Miles nodded to himself. That was a good enough starting point. He’d go set the meeting up in a couple of hours. It’d still be night, but by now, the Inquisitor would have likely informed his staff to expect a visit and doing this at night would minimize witnesses. Miles had first considered making his alliance public immediately, but there was no rush for that. It’d be better to go the slow-and-steady route, and doing this all in the confines of the loop would make everything safer.

  “Second, check to see if I can somehow lock one of the Custodial room’s entrances instead of having them get replaced whenever I use a new door,” Miles listed. As a bound item, Miles was sure the key had more than one trick to it and clearly enough, it was evolving, specifically by him reaching deeper floor. It would continue to develop and grow in potential, just like his other bound items. But maybe there were more to it to uncover? He could spare a few minutes to explore.

  “Third… some brewing, I guess?” he mused, glancing around the hill on which he was sitting. There was no sign of Hazel and the cat, so he guessed she’d made a corner for herself near the woods. She liked that sort of environment.

  Standing up, Miles stretched his back. “I guess that’s a good enough plan to start the day,” he muttered, his voice barely audible over the night breeze and with a wave of his hand, the Blooming Cauldron appeared in front of him. The root-like feet settled softly on top of the shin-high stalks of grass and extended below the soil, while the leaves on its bark-covered side rustled in the soft breeze, and with a gentle infusion of mana, its interior softly lit up, illuminating the hill on which Miles was standing.

  Miles rubbed his hands together, a smile on his lips. “Let’s get started with the salamander, then.”

  Reaching into a fold of space, Miles dragged the pond salamander he’d grabbed on the last delve. It was large. Much larger than the cauldron. But it didn’t need to fit into it all at once. Especially with it being an ingredient. After all, his bound cauldron had some pretty nifty functionalities to handle ingredients.

  Out of the ground, ghostly green vines pulled free out of the soil, slowly wrapping themselves around the cart-sized creature. The ability of the cauldron consumed his mana, of course, but the cost was negligible.

  The magical vines slowly lifted the carcass before guiding it to the lip of the cauldron, bringing it within reach of the most basic function of any cauldron: Converting reagents and materials into their essence, so their properties could be purified and focused.

  The vine surrounding the head of the creature suddenly pulsed, and thin, root-like filaments spread out of the vine, sinking into the flesh and illuminating it from within. The air hummed with magic, while more and more crack crisscrossed across pale, flesh-colored scales of the salamander and with one final pulse, the first chunk separated. It fell toward the cauldron, but as it did, most of it flaked off, turning into dust while a mostly-blood-colored orb of quivering, liquid-looking energy fell into the cauldron.

  All the superfluous material had been cast off, leaving only the raw essences of the creature.

  Maybe that’s what I should do. Shed off all the pretenses, he mused to himself.

  Over the next few minutes, Miles did the same with the rest of the carcass, reducing it one chunk at a time. The process of creating Ascension Elixir—which went by many other names such as Core Extract, Overflow Distillate, so on and so forth—was pretty straightforward. It was the simplest elixir to create, and it didn’t require him to isolate or prep his reagents like other recipes called for. The first step was to reduce a monster’s carcass into raw mess of essences and now that the fleshy parts were gone, an orb of glowing, blood-red energy slowly rotated within the cauldron without touching its walls or bottom, with flecks of gold, silver, and bunch of other shades marring its surface, like a myriad of stars dotting the night sky.

  For this elixir, the yellow flecks were his target. Those were the remains of the core, which would allow those who consumed the elixir to empower their own and jump to the next tier. The rest of the components had to do with the creature’s abilities, from its magical nature to its physical might, but working with those elements wasn’t the focus of his current task and in fact, they could and would ruin his brew, so he didn’t pay them much attention.

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  He could have also isolated them and done something with them… but from a tier-1 creature? What was the point?

  The result would have been worthless.

  Turning his attention to the gold-like flakes, Miles tapped into another of the cauldron’s features. Considering this had been only a tier-1 creature, the remains of the core were easy enough to handle directly. Their innate resistance might as well be nonexistent to him. But why bother with that when his own cauldron allowed him to bypass that?

  Root-like filaments extended out of the cauldron’s inner wall, snaking toward the glowing golden motes. Each required barely a moment’s attention. A look, a flick of his finger, and a filament would shoot out and home in on the target of his attention, securing one of the many orbiting motes through the raw maelstrom of essences and energies. The motes didn’t fight him. They didn’t rip off the filaments or challenge his control and within a minute or two, most, if not all of the core fragments were caught, and so Miles moved on to the next step.

  One by one, the filaments retracted back into the cauldron wall, and the motes sank along with them. Veins of glowing yellow gently lit up all over the inner wall of the cauldron, and the glow slowly traveled upward, heading up to the lip where a glowing bulb was budding out of a freshly grown branch. The bud hung above the still swirling content of the cauldron, like a lightbulb that slowly gained in luminescence with every moment that went by.

  Miles grinned, hunching forward to examine the bulb. In a way, it almost didn’t look real. Unlike the ghostly vines that had held up the carcass or the root-like filaments that had absorbed the motes out of the cauldron, the bulb looked half material, half magical. Its appearance might have been mundane at the start, but with every second that went by, it was slowly being enveloped by an unearthly sheen that only grew brighter as the most powerful and most important features of this cauldron activated. Once more, he could have also done this by his own, but why bother when his soul-tied tool could do it faster and better? Not to mention, it looked amazing.

  The process of refining and concentrating what he had extracted was always fun to watch.

  What had been isolated out of the carcass would have been enough to create at least 6 or 7 doses of elixir. The user would have needed to take these regularly, and space them out enough so that the core wasn’t overloaded and strained, especially considering the trace impurities still intrinsically tied to the beast core’s fragments. These wouldn’t be too detrimental, especially if given time to clear out. But it also meant that advancing took time, and it took resources, considering core elixirs weren’t that cheap to begin with.

  This process could be completely bypassed by refining and concentrating the brew.

  What the Blooming Cauldron was doing now was simple. As the motes traveled up, they were being filtered and concentrated. The impurities were being removed. The excess energies were being harmonized and focused, and this would result in a single, potent dose that would guarantee an ascension with a single dose. It’d be overkill in many scenarios, and of course, ungodly expensive for any tier-1 individual as the technique and knowledge required to produce such an elixir would require decades of practice, but Miles didn’t see that as a waste.

  While he could concoct a perfect tier-1 core elixir in his sleep thanks to his own practice, knowledge, and the cauldron, it wasn’t too different from creating the higher-tier version. Everything fought you a little more, and the refinement and concentration took a lot longer and required much more mana, but the Skill transferred well enough. Plus, even if he wouldn’t make much on the tier-1 extracts, the higher-tier version would sell well enough. Not to mention, this would be the gift for Aunt Seren anyway, so it was no trouble at all.

  Once the lights stopped traveling from the side of the cauldron up toward the bulb, Miles uncorked a vial and lined it up to the bud, which quivered for a couple of seconds before it opened up, and a deep, amber-colored liquid flowed horizontally into the receptacle. An intense flowery scent filled the air, and when the bulb finished releasing its content, it shriveled, and the whole branch detached and dropped into the still swirling concoction.

  “That’s one,” Miles said, corking the vial and storing it in the first spot of an empty, elixir set and with that done, he finally let his bound item have its meal.

  As if small vortices had appeared at the cauldron’s bottom, the raw essences began funneling away like water through drains. It wasn’t much for the cauldron. It was the equivalent of him snacking on a single peanut, especially when compared to everything else he had fed it through the last few decades but at least, the remains wouldn’t be wasted.

  Glancing down at the vial, he knew he didn’t even need to test its efficiency. He’d brewed enough to know his product by now, and he knew that with how powerful the specimen he’d extracted this tincture from had been, the elixir could easily make one progress well into tier-3 before it lost efficiency. As for its purity, he’d put it at nothing less than 99%, meaning that even with how concentrated and powerful of a brew it was, it wouldn’t be able to injure whomever imbibed it. If the user was already past tier-1, it would only act as a reinforcing tincture, and it would prep the core for the same quality of elixirs as well as patch up any deficiencies that might have slipped the individual’s attention. And if one wasn’t tier-1, then the elixir would seamlessly and smoothly bring them up to that point.

  “Not worth wasting a testing kit for anything less than a tier-10 potion, honestly,” he said, peering over the cauldron’s lip to make sure it was clean. “Well. Good enough for now, let’s move on to the next one.”

  Reaching into his storage, he pulled out the giant eel he’d caught along with those rookies while crossing the lake, and got to work.

  ***

  When Miles stepped out of the room that held his gateway, it was with a big smile on his face, and that wasn’t because he’d successfully and perfectly brewed the tier-2 elixir.

  No, it was because he’d worked on the Custodial key, and it had barely taken him a few minutes to confirm that yes, he could make it so one of the gates would not be replaced. In fact, he could lock both gates, but if he did that, he wouldn’t be able to connect new doors with the key, so he refrained. He’d rather have the option to hop into any door or wardrobe whenever he needed to without having to mess around with the key. For now, he just needed the one in the hotel to stay there and once he had a floor number where he’d meet Talon in the Dungeon, he could just use the platform of the Custodial Room directly. Traversing the early floor was easy enough for him.

  So, with that handled, he was free to get a move on, which meant going to invite Talon into the Dungeon and with his access to the surface, he’d check on the others and make sure they were okay. Then he’d have some time to consider what to do. Whether to try and salvage and maintain the multiple identities, or say ‘screw it’ and drop all pretenses. Collect all those he cared about within the Custodial Room or within a spot in the Dungeon, then use the loop to fend off all those who’d come looking until things calmed down.

  But that was a decision for later.

  Getting back to the hotel was easy enough and this time, he didn’t even need to use an invisibility elixir. It was still the first few minutes of dawn, and it was mostly dark so a cowl to hide his masked face was plenty to get him to his destination. The streets weren’t completely empty, of course. There were some folks that were getting to work, and some that were heading home after a long night of drinking, but no one paid him any mind and those who noticed him were quick to look away.

  It was well ingrained in the psyche of most that staring at those who wanted to stay hidden was one of the best way to get into trouble.

  Unsurprisingly, there was already some movements within the hotel. Not as much as it had been in the day, but clearly enough, Miles wasn’t the only who didn’t require much sleep.

  “Halt,” called out one of two sentinels at the door. He was a tall man, with a dark, well-groomed mustache. With a quick extension of his mana-senses, he’d put them at around tier-15 or 20. Not weak at all, but no threats, either.

  “I’m here to speak with Talon Ironvault,” Miles simply said, pulling his cowl just enough so the blazing mask was visible.

  The two guards’ eyes widened, then the one who spoke nodded before reaching for the door and pulling it open. “Of course, sir. I’ll escort you,” the mustachioed man said.

  Naturally, this drew the attention of the uniformed folk already going back and forth within the hotel’s reception area, but no one moved against them or did much aside from getting out of their way and within a literal minute, Miles found himself in front of a wet-haired Talon.

  “I didn’t expect an answer this fast,” the Inquisitor said, brows slightly raised from behind a still steaming cup of coffee. The man had likely just gotten out of the shower and gesturing to the chair in front of his desk, he gave Miles a pleasant smile. “Please, have a seat. Would you like something to drink?”

  Miles didn’t intend on making this into a long stay, so he had no intent on doing either. “I appreciate the offer,” he said with a nod. “But I’m afraid I’ll have to decline this time.”

  Talon’s face remained neutral, but his eyes sharpened, and he just nodded, understanding that Miles wasn’t done.

  “I have some urgent business to take care of and I intend on heading down immediately. I came here to ask if you have a Depth Sigil on hand. I’m still considering your offer, and I’m still interested, but… complications have come up. If I can’t meet you below, it might take more than a few days until I’m able to come back.”

  Miles was, of course, exaggerating, and not by just a little. He could come to the surface whenever he liked, but Talon didn’t need to know that and considering his history, the Inquisitor could easily suspect that Miles might be gone for weeks, if not months.

  That hopefully should be enough pressure to bring the man within the confines of the Dungeon.

  Talon leaned back, a hand still on the desk, gently tapping on the wood for a few moments, then he gave Miles a slow nod.

  “I’d very much prefer not to disclose such strategic information, but as goodwill, I’ll say that yes, I do have one available to me. I can meet you in three days on the 9th waystation. How does that sound?”

  Miles just smiled, which wasn’t visible from behind his mask so he nodded.

  “Duskmire. That is perfect. I will meet you there.”

  The goodbyes were brief, and Miles didn’t even return to the hotel. Instead, he found the nearby alley, used the spare warehouse door, and slipped into the Custodial Room.

  He had access to the 3rd floor already. He just needed to cross 6 more floors in 3 days. Plus, he had to admit, he sort of missed Duskmire. He wouldn’t mind hanging out there for a day or two.

  “I guess I’m going to use those stamina elixirs after all,” he grinned as the Dungeon’s platform lit up around him. This would be a challenge but for the first time in a while, he would need to go all out.

  It’d be interesting to see if he made it with enough time to spare.

  I'll be taking the next update off to get some rest and celebrate the new year. Next chapter will be on January 9th!