[Author’s note: Hello. I’ve decided to give runes dedicated names. They aren’t arts, but will be capitalised and written/used in a similar fashion for clarity''s sake. Just for note, treasures do not have runes unless they’re added after. Every treasure comes with natural abilities and/or arts, but not runes. Artifacts imitate treasures via forgery to replicate their shape, and use runemancy to mimic their natural abilities/arts. The Stygian Zephyr’s ability to be swung as a weapon and controlled like another limb is natural, everything else it’s capable of is due to runes. I will be naming the Zephyr runes, and capitalising them like I do with arts, whenever they appear from now on as there’s a lot of them. Also, I will be using the same style of brackets as I’m using for this note as I will for when two characters speak using a mental connection instead of out loud, [like this]; this will become relevant soon and I just wanted to make note of it in advance. Also Also, I’ll be using two speech marks from now on whenever multiple characters speak at the same time, ““WHAT!?”” ← Like that. Enjoy.]


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    It was getting late by the time Ares returned from his family outing. Aejaz and Allie had already gone to sleep and Leo was conked out on the carpet. Appa was floating groggily down the hall, so Enyo picked it up and cuddled Appa between her arms as she walked. They entered their room, but Ares still wanted to get one last thing done today, so he tucked the two into bed, kissed Appa on the forehead and Enyo on her lips, and bid them both goodnight while telling them he loved them. He couldn’t help but smile warmly as he caught a glimpse of Appa snuggling up to Enyo as he closed the door on the way out.


    It was rather hard to see in the corridor, so Ares used the Glow technical to light up his hand with a gentle radiance that cleared away the encroaching darkness of the night. This action only served to make Ares even more curious as to why technicals were so unpopular given their potential versatility, but oh well. One man''s trash is another man’s treasure after all. Of course, Ares was blissfully unaware that, actually, technicals were highly revered outside the domains he was familiar with and technical prodigies were practically worshipped for their contributions to the cultivation world. There was even a planet dedicated solely to technical research.


    Ares stepped into one of the cultivation rooms and took a seat on a pillow. He moved over a low table, that he could work on from his seated position, and pulled out all the materials for the Black Ice Bane, including the rune cheat sheet that Julio begrudgingly ‘gave’ him earlier. As Ares had grown fairly knowledgeable when it came to forging, or merging as he referred to it, he could tell instinctively that there was an excess of materials. Ares was very much a waste-not want-not kind of person, so he took out a piece of paper and drew a mock-up of something he could create using the extra resources he had on hand. He was fairly pleased with the eventual outcome after some tinkering, so he set it aside and got to work on the Black Ice Bane first.


    First, he started with the handle which was primarily made using the heavy abyssal ice so he could wield the weapon with a nice, firm grip. The blade of the katana itself was tricky to get right as the hazy vapour was only just barely solid and annoyingly mirage-like, constantly flickering in and out of exisance. Getting the shape and proportions right without his merging skill and Omniscience would have been a nightmare, but he finally worked out a nice blend of length, thickness, and sharpness. Not long after, the blade was completed. Inside the black crystal blade, running along the length of the blade, was a single line of pure white vapour that branched off in countless places, giving the impression that the blade was cracked. Despite its looks, it was surprisingly a rather sturdy blade that could take a fair bit of punishment. That being said, a ‘fair bit’ isn’t exactly reassuring, it breaking mid fight would be more than just a ‘fair bit’ of a problem. Ares wasn’t particularly worried about this, however, as Dabble and Julio had already foreseen this issue, and they were pretty masterful craftsmen in their own right, so naturally they had a solution. Put simply, one of the runes Julio handed over was a self-repair rune that would allow Ares to perform regular maintenance on the sword so it wouldn’t break and, even if it did, it could still be fixed with relative ease. Ares was certainly glad he’d received this rune, but he felt he could do better. In fact, he had his own unique idea for a set of runes, so he decided he wouldn’t even be using the ones Julio had given him at all, minus the base of the self-repair rune as that would come in handy. If Julio knew about this, he would probably freak out and charge at Ares with his axe on sight.


    Ares had originally planned on spending around an hour on this Black Ice project before finishing up, but the creation of his own unique runes was not much different to that of technical creation, so he wound up spending most of the night slaving away with a wicked grin on his face.


    Ares finally leant back with his hands behind his head, gazing in admiration at his craftsmanship 6 hours after he first started. Perfect. Ares simply couldn’t have done any better and, if he was being completely honest, he didn’t think even Dabble and Julio could have done better no matter how much time they were given unless they accidentally created a treasure. The artifact before him was truly a master-craft if ever there was one. Ares felt giddy with energy as he stared at it, almost losing to the temptation to take it outside right this instant and start swinging it around like a raving madman in the night.


    The Black Ice Bane essentially revolved around one key gimmick; state percentage. The Black Ice Bane’s ‘state’ starts at 100%. As it uses the various runes on it, and while it receives strong attacks head on, this percentage decreases. When the percentage goes down, the blade chips and, eventually, at 0%, it breaks. While this may sound problematic, not only does it increase the power of the runes, as drawbacks in one area allow for developments in another, there’s also a rune that passively restores the state percentage. If the state percentage is not at 100%, it will passively mend itself and rebuild the weapon at a rate of roughly 2% every minute. If the weapon is not currently in use, the rate increases to 5%. If the wielder pours mana into the weapon, it increases the regeneration by yet another 2%, for a max of 7% regeneration per minute, and 4% during combat.


    The Black Ice Bane, like Enyo’s steadfast Aegis, had four runes engraved upon it. The first of which, named Cold Caller, is simply a means of reducing the temperature in the immediate area. It’s fairly simple, but incredibly effective against fire pillar magic and hot climates; this was of particular relevance as one of the places Ares planned to visit with Aejaz later on is a desert. It can also be used to chill opponents over a long period of time. Cold Caller only uses 2% of the weapons state per minute, meaning it could be used indefinitely thanks to the passive regen. The second rune is Remake and functions as described above, recovering the Black Ice Bane’s state every minute. The third and fourth runes are a pair and function as offensive options. Number three is Crystalised Void which allows disintegration magic to be made solid via nothingness merging it with abyssal ice. Disintegration gaining a physical state and becoming Crystalised Void allows for vastly different means of usage, and allows Ares to launch a wider variety of shaped, offensive magic that doesn’t rely on the annihilation aspect. The fourth rune, Shatter, imbues Crystalised Void with annihilation magic, detonating it and scattering the Crystalised disintegration magic explosively. The percentage these runes require in order to use is determined by the size of the Crystalised Void magic. All in all, Ares was very pleased. The best part was that the Black Ice Bane’s effectiveness was incredibly high, meaning he wouldn’t have to upgrade it, to keep up with his own cultivation, for a good while.


    Next on the to-do list was morphing the excess materials into a dagger. This dagger, the Black Ice Acrimony, as Ares dubbed it, wasn’t actually for Ares himself, but rather Aejaz. For that reason, the runes weren’t going to be particularly useful for Ares given that they were designed for someone else with a different fighting style to him. He wasn’t going to gift it to Aejaz straight away though as he had to earn it first and show Ares he deserved it. Ares also wanted to practise using a good quality dagger for a while anyway, so it worked out. Aejaz should learn to use a regular dagger before worrying about runes, Ares grumbled inwardly.


    Ares didn’t take too long to create the dagger due to its smaller size, and the fact that two of the runes he added had already been made beforehand for the Black Ice Bane helped tremendously. Still though, the Cold Caller and Remake runes needed to be adjusted for use on a dagger, so that took its fair share of time. Overall, the Acrimony took about 2? hours to create. The Cold Caller rune would actually be more useful for Aejaz considering it worked nicely with the third rune Ares added to the Acrimony, Succumb. Upon injuring an opponent, Acrimony could ice the opponent’s veins. Kind of like the blue oleander flower back in Baja Forest. The amount of blood chilled would depend on the amount of state percentage used. Between Cold Caller and Succumb, Aejaz would now have a means of fighting back in longer skirmishes, which would typically be the downfall of a regular assassin. Plus, it would slow Aejaz’ enemies down to a crawl which, as a speed type fighter in the same vein as Ares, would make it even easier to both dodge enemy attacks and amass icy wounds on his opponent. It was a similar tactic to using poison that worked well for people like Aejaz, who were unnaturally good at dodging attacks and dragging on a fight, to guarantee a sure kill over time. To make Aejaz as annoying to hit as possible, Ares created the fourth rune, Hazy Phantom. Hazy Phantom would create a mist similar to the one Appa created during its fight against Slick. Aejaz’ appearance would become distorted and difficult to detect as long as he remained in the fog. It also had a minor confusing effect on any enemies within it. This particular rune was well-suited to a would-be assassin for obvious reasons, but it also went hand-in-hand with the Cold Caller / Succumb strategy. Aejaz had absolutely no obligation to fight people fairly whatsoever and this artifact was a fitting extension of that thought process. Of course, this was still nothing in the grand-scheme of things, Aejaz really did have a long way to go, and Ares had a lot of ideas to get his brother into tip-top fighting shape, but this would do for now.


    Although Ares was on a pride-filled high, he knew he was tired and that he should get at least some rest before tomorrow’s training session, so he went back to the room and wriggled his way under the blanket.


    “Daddy, Mommy, I love you,” Appa mumbled in a sleepy daze. It was having a pleasant dream and, when Ares got under the covers, rubbed his head with its rope and patted him a few times before huddling up against Enyo’s bosom again.


    “I love you too, Appa,” Ares whispered as he returned the favour by petting Appa a few times before falling asleep.


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    Dawn broke and Ares was poked awake by a very eager Appa. “Wake up sleepy-head!”


    Ares groaned and rolled over to face the other direction. “Appa, sweetie, have mercy. Daddy didn’t get much sleep last night and is going to have to do a lot of training later.”


    “And who’s fault is it you didn’t get much sleep?” Enyo’s mocking voice made Ares’ shut eyes twitch. There was no arguing against a perfectly valid point.


    “It may be my fault, but I still see no reason to have to get up yet.”


    “No reason, huh?”


    Ares waited patiently for Enyo to keep talking, but started to get antsy when he heard her whispering something to Appa. What on earth are those two scheming behind my ba“AAAAAAA….” Ares yelped and fell off the bed when Appa used its ice pillar magic to freeze his back. He grumpily raised his head to look over the bed with narrowed eyes and a displeased glare.


    “Hehe.” Appa’s rope wagged as it giggled at the success of the prank its mother had recommended.


    Ares clambered onto the bed and playfully rugby tackled his daughter. “Don’t ‘hehe’ me you cute little refrigerator.”


    While Enyo watched happily as Ares and Appa played around, she reminded him that the adoption papers were ready to pick up, and that that was plenty enough reason to drag him out of bed. They got changed and headed over to the town hall after Ares made some breakfast for Appa who was no longer content with just two servings of Snappas a day. When they arrived, they headed over to Hans’ area and took a seat.


    Hans opened a draw at his desk and fiddled around inside looking for the adoption papers. “Good morning, it would seem young Appa is really excited for its big day.”


    Ares chuckled as Appa bobbed around on his lap. “As are we. It’ll be nice to have all the legal procedures all done and finally set in stone.”


    “Well then, let’s delay no further. I happily present you with these.” Hans stretched out his hand with the adoption papers and, before Enyo or Ares could take it from him, a rope shot out and latched onto them.


    Appa retracted the rope and tucked the papers away inside of itself while squealing happily with triangular indents at the bottom of its eye sockets. As shades couldn’t carry spatial rings, they typically learnt how to create a storage dimension underneath their cloth-y exterior as it was a part of their bloodline anyway.


    “Haha, quick little shade, aren’t ya? Don’t worry too much about keeping the papers safe, we’ll be more than happy to replace them if they ever get lost or damaged for whatever reason. Although I can tell you just really want to hold onto them yourself, don’tcha?”


    “Mhm!” Appa nodded its head with great gusto.


    Ares patted Appa and handed it over to Enyo to cuddle for a while as he was about to discuss a different matter with Hans. “It seems I’m gonna have a bit of time on my hands. I’m supposed to be spending my time training for the competition and, hey, what better way to train than to do a bit of good business? I’ve also got my hands on a new weapon and the quickest way to adjust to it, naturally, is to use it.” Ares took out a rolled parchment and put it on the desk in front of Hans. “Do you have any suggestions for good sparring partners?”


    Hans momentarily smiled maliciously, which was a stark contrast to his usual appearance but indicated business mode. “Actually, I have the perfect person in mind. I could have given this job to someone else, but I kept it specially for you because I knew you’d get more mileage out of it than anyone else in this infernal city.” Hans flicked open his lighter once more, took a deep breath, and then put the lighter away. Ares stashed the parchment back into his Primordial Blade without unfolding it, he would check out the details burned into it later. “It’s good to have you back in the game, especially now that your cultivation has risen. I’ve worked with so many useless chumps as of late that it’ll be nice to work with someone experienced who can damn well do their job cleanly, quickly, and quietly.” Hans sighed in exasperation. “You do better than everyone else I hire and you never ask for compensation either, this world could do with more young’uns like you. Thanks for your work, Ares.”


    “No problem. Aejaz and I have always had a ‘I scratch your back, you scratch mine’ relationship with the common people of Red Sun anyway. This is just an extension of that.”


    “Speaking of the lad, do you ever plan on involving Aejaz in this line of work?”


    “Originally I hadn’t, no, but things have changed. It’s very likely I’ll be sending him your way for some training of his own.” Ares leaned in and whispered, “Unlike me though, Aejaz is more geared towards wet work. He may actually be your best contractor yet when he gets into the swing of things.”


    Hans’ eyebrow raised and he looked visibly shocked. “Little ‘Jaz? I honestly never would have pegged him the type.”


    “You’d be surprised. Anyhow, I’ll be seeing you a lot more in the upcoming weeks to get ahead of work before I leave again.”


    “Music to my ears. Oh, before you go, it almost slipped my mind, but there was one more thing I was meaning to talk to you about. Nothing business related, mind you, but something you may be interested in.”


    “Oh?”


    “It’s this new thing that’s popped up in Red Sun. Apparently, some cultivator got his hands on a really bizarre treasure, and the business he kickstarted is focused on the use of that treasure. Branch stores have been appearing across the entire domain, and now one’s graced our town too. Long story short, it’s a delivery service.”


    “A delivery service?”


    “Ha, come on, you think I’d recommend you check it out if it was something so simple? Everyone in town’s been raving about it and so I went to go have a looksie myself, you know, get a rundown of the place just in case trouble was brewing in our neck of the woods. Let me tell you, lad, I was speechless. Signed up instantly and haven’t regretted it since. It’s weird to get used to, but I can tell this business is going places and may just become the next big thing. It’s already on the up and up, and the best part? The business is entirely neutral and takes no political stances regardless of the country they’re set up in. That neutrality allows for some more private, shady work to be carried out seamlessly.”


    “I guess I can take a look, but only because the recommendation is coming from you.”


    Hans gave Ares directions to the place in question and waved as the trio took off. “Trust me, you won’t regret it lad, especially now that you’ve got a big ol’ family.”


    Ares couldn’t wrap his head around why Hans seemed so eager about this place, but Hans was a logical man with good business sense, so he decided to go to the place before training started. It couldn’t hurt to check it out at least.


    Enyo hadn’t wanted to interrupt Hans’ and Ares’ private conversation, but she couldn''t help but break the silence now that they were outside and ask, “What kind of business is it exactly that Hans runs? Or should I not know?”


    Ares looked around to make sure no-one was listening in before explaining. “Hans runs an underground syndicate, not a criminal one though, it’s more like vigilantism. This town is rife with corruption and bribery. A few years ago, before I first met Hans, he lost his daughter thanks to the guards of the city turning a blind eye to her murderer in broad daylight. He was distraught and took it upon himself to right some of the wrongs in this place. His daughter used to own the tailor shop a few streets away, so he took over and ‘worked’ in secret out the back of the store while looking after his grand-daughter, Missy. He slowly wormed his way into a position in town hall that offered him a bit more power and he’d been able to recruit wet workers as a result to aid him in cleaning up the streets here and there. He really wants this city to become something more than it currently is; a cesspool of vermin and criminal organisations. He feels sorry for the people that have had to go through the same as him and he works tirelessly to bring whatever retribution he can to the people that deserve it. If his cultivation were higher, he would have marched into the mayor’s house and murdered him in cold blood by now. He’s respected by just about anyone and everyone who knows what he really does and is seen as something of a second mayor in this city considering the contacts he has and the amount of people that work for him.”


    Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.


    “And how did you wind up working for him?”


    “I mentioned it earlier, but Aejaz and I get along really well with the people of Red Sun. It took a few years to get to that point, but we got in their good graces eventually. You see, our reputation as bandits was mainly just propagated by the big clans and shops of Red Sun that we stole from. Under no circumstance did we ever steal from the ‘little guy’, the people working hard at their stalls in the streets just to get by. Actually, we used to give handouts and help them whenever we could, however we could. In exchange, the people never ratted us out, they never told the people who were after us where we were located or where our temporary bases were. They pretended to be completely oblivious and ignorant on all fronts about us, which was a pretty big deal considering the Chen Clan alone would’ve been a massive problem, let alone every single person we’ve ever angered. Not to brag, but we pretty much became something like folklore and urban legend heroes to those people. You know, steal from the rich, give to the poor. That reputation eventually put us in touch with Hans as our goals were pretty similar to one another. He made our lives easier in whatever way he could; gave us places to sleep, things to eat, etc… In return, I took up assassination requests here and there while I made Aejaz steal bribery money from specific targets. I never actually told Aejaz about any of this because it just seemed too early to get him involved in that kind of business, but I still had him indirectly help out a bit. Hans was the only person we could rely on for anything and we consistently, successfully, completed work for him, so we got along.”


    “And here I thought you were just a menace to society. Turns out, you''re a helpful menace to society.”


    “Pfft, I was expecting you to be all like, ‘Aresssss, vigilantism is badddddddd.’”


    “I do not sound like that. As for the work you do… I have mixed feelings about it, but because it’s you, and because the intent is well-meaning, I’ll ignore it. Also, I wasn’t aware of how serious the issues in this town were. I have no suggestions for how to fix it, so I won’t talk your ear off for how you’ve chosen to go about dealing with things. I still don’t think two wrongs make a right but you’ve changed my mind on the matter somewhat and I acknowledge it as a means to an end.”


    “Phew, for a second there, I thought you were going to arrest me.”


    “No…” Enyo licked her lips under her helmet. “... But I might still cuff you anyway…”


    Ares grinned and whispered, “You know, there’s this shop not too far from here that specialises in stuff like that.”


    Enyo gulped audibly and Ares knew her well enough to know she was getting excited at the thought of it. “I… I want to go… But… I can’t… I can’t be caught walking around that place… My reputation…”


    “Haha, don’t worry. I don’t mind going there by myself and bringing you back a list of the fun things they sell. I’m already the biggest scoundrel this city has ever seen, my reputation can’t go any lower. Also, I know the woman who runs the place; did her a few favours here and there. She won’t say anything if I ask her not to… I think. She’s a bit of a gossip… Kind of like Zhang actually.”


    “Dad, what kind of shop does mum want to go to?” Appa cutely interjected.


    “... A toy shop?”


    “A toy shop!? Can I go!?”


    Cough cough


    “Uh… Um… No. It’s not that kind of toy shop. If you like, I can take you to an actual toy shop some other time.”


    “YAY!”


    Enyo smiled wryly under her helmet at her innocent daughter before turning back to Ares. “Thanks for going to the shop for me but, just a fair warning, you better not hide anything from me when you report back.”


    Ares knew exactly what Enyo was referring to and secretly prayed in his mind, Please dear God, don’t sell whips.


    Enyo whispered seductively into Ares’ ear, “If you be a good boy and tell me the truth, I’ll wear any lingerie you buy me, no matter how kinky.”


    Ares was seriously struggling with the images in his head, and had to silently beg Enyo not to make him erect in public as it was incredibly difficult to hide, to which she simply laughed and replied, “I thought your reputation couldn’t get any lower?”


    As the two kept pulling each other’s leg while a confused but joyous shade followed along merrily behind its parents, the family of three eventually made their way to the designated location and found the building they were looking for.


    The store front was unimpressive considering how much praise Hans had given the shop and there really wasn’t many people around. There was another postal service in Red Sun besides this one and Ares couldn’t immediately notice any glaring differences between the two. When he peeked inside, the layout and general atmosphere of the place was exactly like any other postal service he’d seen before and likely would ever see. Even the name of the shop, ‘Transmit’, wasn’t anything catchy or memorable, and the worker at the front desk looked bored and tired. Ares wasn’t the type to judge a book by its cover, but it was pretty hard not to in this particular instance. Nonetheless, he ventured inside and headed towards the reception desk.


    The guy behind the desk was around 20 years old, had bags under his eyes, incredibly pale skin, and yawned at a frequent rate that was excessive enough for a concerned individual to recommend he go see a doctor.


    Ares couldn’t help but wonder why there were so many sleepyheads in Red Sun as, other than Rud, apparently the sect master was an expert napper too.


    As Ares approached, the man behind the desk, ever so slowly, stretched, and sat up, in his chair, before leaning, on his fist, and, sluggedly, welcoming the newcomer, in a drawling voice, “Hello... and... welcome... to... Transmit... where... our... deliveries... are... so... ludicrously... impressive,,, we... put... the... ‘post..’. in... preposterous...”


    The pep with which the sentence should have been said and the general attitude of the man uttering it appeared to be perpetually at war with one another, making Ares feel like this man would seriously rather be anywhere but here. Just as he was about to ask for details about this place, a spry young girl leapt out of a backroom with enough vigour to fuel ten hundred of the man sitting behind the desk for a thousand years straight.


    “Hello! And welcome to Transmit! Where we make… OH! I am so sorry! I didn’t realise you were already being served! And would you look at that! You got Loris Lax to be your mail handler! Lucky you!”


    Ares and Enyo were flabbergasted by this dynamic duo. Ares managed to eke out a question he really needed answers to right about now, “Lucky?” What part of this was lucky? He didn’t even know what this place was exactly, let alone why this sloth incarnate was supposedly something he should be appreciative of.


    “Ah! you must’ve only just arrived?! This place is really quite simple!” The young girl took over the explanation, which Ares was eternally grateful for lest he spend the next couple of hours waiting for Loris Lax, the king of slow himself, to finish speaking. “You pay a monthly fee and we deliver things to you!”


    “Uhh, shouldn’t you primarily be delivering my things to other people?”


    “Nope! We do that for free! As soon as you sign up, you get put in our registry! Anyone can send anything they want to a person so long as the person receiving it is in the registry, even if the sender isn’t in the registry themselves!”


    “Literally anyone can walk in and send me stuff so long as I pay monthly and they know my name?”


    “Yep! Anyone, anywhere!”


    “Hold a minute. What do you mean anywhere?”


    “Exactly as it sounds! It doesn’t matter if you’re a mole-man hiding under the earth, or a moon-man way up high in the night sky, we’ll find you, and we’ll deliver you your mail!”


    Ares decided to pretend that ominous sounding, ‘we’ll find you’, was harmless and move on. “So, you can guarantee that, no matter where I am, you’ll be able to deliver to me?”


    “Yep! In less than ten seconds or you get your monthly payment back!”


    “Huh, that’s pretty goo… Wait a minute… TEN SECONDS?”


    The young girl nodded her head with astonishing vigour. “No matter if you’re in a different city, country, domain, or universe! We will find you!”


    “I beg of you, stop saying that. Also, that’s pretty hard to believe. You’re telling me someone in, say, Neo Gear Land, could go into one of your branches, ask an employee to deliver something to me in another country, and it would get here in at most, ten seconds?”


    “Yep! Even if you were outside the seven known domains, we’d find you!”


    “Ok, seriously, stop saying that.” Ares then took a minute to readjust himself and realised something pretty important… This person is aware that there are more domains outside the seven that people know of! Who the hell is running this place!? Why does even some random employee know that!?


    “If you’d like, you could test our services here and now!”


    “Uh, sure?” Ares couldn’t wrap his head around this strange place, so he decided to just go with the flow and try it out for himself.


    “Who would you like to send your delivery to?!” The young girl summoned an impossibly thick book out of seemingly nowhere and it crashed onto the table with a deafening thump that even lifted up dust off the floor.


    “Uh, Hans I suppose.”


    “Okey doke, gimme a sec!” The girl flicked through the pages and landed on the ‘H’ section a few seconds later. “Hans, Hans, Hans! Ah, we seem to have a couple thousand ‘Hans’ here, could you be more specific?!”


    “I guess that’s fair. He’s the one that works in town hall a few streets away and owns the tailor shop near Red Street.”


    “Gotcha! It just so happens I’m his mail handler too! Perfect! Hand over the package and I’ll be on my way!”


    Ares took out a bag of Shock Beads that Hans could maybe give to one of his younger contractors so they could be a bit safer in this hellish town when going about their work. “Just this bag. Not that I mind but, do you need to know what’s in it?”


    “Nope! None of my business!” The girl took the bag and disappeared on the spot quicker than even Ares could if he used his Shift art. Before Ares could even blink, the girl returned with a beaming smile. “All done!”


    “... And you can make deliveries that quickly… Anywhere? Even if you don’t know exactly where the person is?”


    “Yep!”


    “... That’s one hell of a treasure your business owner has found.”


    “I know, right!?”


    “Before I sign up, could we do one more test?”


    “Okey doke! What do you want to do?!”


    “I’m going to disappear. I want you to deliver something to me after I do and as soon as you''re able.”


    “Sure thing! But it won’t be me making the delivery, Loris Lax is your handler after all! If you register, he’ll deliver all of your mail personally! Whenever someone wants to make a delivery to you, it will be sent to him first!”


    “You mentioned I was lucky to have him?” Ares didn’t believe it, not even for a damn second.


    “Mhm, he’s the most dedicated of all our deliverymen! His passion for the job is unrivalled and he does the job better than everyone else, hands down! He’s undeniably the best employee across all of our branches!”


    Ares looked over at Loris Lax with renewed hope, only to see him, at some point in time, having slouched deeper into his chair than he was previously… Nope. Don’t believe it. Not buying it. “Well, anyway, you can deliver this bag to me.” Ares put another bag of Shock Beads on the desk in front of Loris Lax and Shifted away without telling him where he’d gone off to.


    Ares arrived back in his house at the sect after paying a hefty mana price to use a long-range shift that he’d set up when he first moved into the place.


    “You. Have.  MAIL.”


    Ares jumped in fright as a cold, ghastly voice rang in his ear from directly behind him. He turned around in a panic and saw Loris Lax less than a foot away, haunting him like a phantom of terror with his empty, dead-fish eyes, holding out a bag of Shock Rocks. That was fucking horrifying! Not only did this pale, ghostly reaper of man somehow appear in his room, he’d done it completely and utterly silently. Ares took the bag as his eyes twitched. “Uh, thanks.”


    As swiftly as he arrived, Loris Lax vanished without a word or a trace.


    When Ares recomposed himself a second later, and stopped reeling over this bizarre experience, he Shifted back to the Transmit shop. “That… was admittedly rather impressive… Albeit perhaps a bit creepy. How much is the monthly pay?”


    “One. medium. grade. star - dust.”


    OH COME ON! STARDUST IS ONE WORD DAMMIT! WHY ARE YOU SEPARATING IT? JUST SO YOU CAN TAKE EVEN LONGER TO SAY IT!?


    Cough


    “That’s… incredibly cheap. I’m surprised you even make a profit.”


    The young girl shrugged. “It’s not like the cost of doing business is high for us! The only thing we have to pay for is the storefront! With how many customers we get, even a price as low as that nets us a hefty profit! Still though, most non-cultivators aren’t able to afford us, so it’s not actually even really considered ‘cheap’ for a lot of people! Even outer court disciples might struggle to consistently pay for our service every month what with all the pills and artifacts they probably buy!”


    “Makes sense to me. Oh, one more question. What if I don’t want to be disturbed while I’m cultivating or something?”


    “The book will know! In that case, we’ll hold onto your delivery until you’re next available!” The young girl winked at Ares and whispered in hush tones while glancing at Enyo, “Don’t worry, that also includes play time in the bedroom!”


    Ares gave a thumbs up in approval and paid the price. Similar to a Vermillion Record, the book for registering required a bit of essence, so he dropped his blood on it before also paying for Enyo and Appa’s registration. Enyo’s pride made her reluctant to have Ares pay for her at first, but Ares pointed out she was incredibly poor as she never took compensation for upholding her ‘justice’ during sect missions, and she had no choice but to relent. As for Allie and Aejaz, they weren’t here so they couldn’t be registered unfortunately, but he would definitely bring them over at some other point in time. Hans was right, this service was incredible. It made Ares curious though, just what kind of treasure is enabling this strange postal service? Ares put the thought to the back of his mind for now and went on his merry way back to the sect with Enyo and Appa as it was nearly time to start training.


    After arriving back at the house, Ares was annoyed to find out from Allie that Aejaz was still sleeping! Ares had worked tirelessly throughout the night, partially for the sake of making that bastard a weapon and, to top it all off, he was also given a rude awakening early to go to town hall. Meanwhile, Aejaz was sleeping peacefully like a log without a care in the world! Ares wasn’t having it, so he picked up his sweet little daughter, brought Appa into Aejaz’s room, and had Appa turn Aejaz into a popsicle. When a shivering Aejaz broke out of his ice-encasing to the sight, and sound, of a ‘hehe-ing’ Appa, he immediately glared at Ares, but was quickly dragged out of the room by his older brother who didn’t give a damn about his all-too literal icy-cold glare.


    Ares, Enyo, and a miffed Aejaz left Appa and Allie to go to the training hall and found Esme, once again, ribbing Li Li about Dirk. “I just think you’d be his blood-type, if ya’ know what I’m sayin’.”


    Sadie came in last and her hair indicated that, like Aejaz, she’d only recently woken up. Ares was seriously starting to wonder if Yulo, Rud, Charity, Loris, Aejaz, and Sadie were going to form some sort of sleeping committee. Probably not, their talking points would all start to get tired after a while… Hehe.


    “Alright, today marks day one of your training. Luckily, individually, you’re all quite talented, so you’ll probably be able to skimp through with mediocre teamwork in the early stages of the competition. Even still, I plan on grinding you on the proverbial whetstone before the international. I’m going to drill into you how to work as a team, combine your strengths, and bolster your minds until you’re a group of five well-oiled machines.”


    Ares raised his hand. “Should we ask Slick for help with that last part?”


    Thwack


    Sadie palmed Ares on the back of the head before he could even see what happened to him. “If you have time to wisecrack, you have time to shut up and train. On that note, we’re gonna start by training individually in the things you’re lacking. Like I said, there’s time to learn teamwork, but this is more important for now. Enyo, you’re lacking in aggression, so I’ll be teaching you how to use a spear and guiding you on various ways to use the holy pillar offensively. Li Li, you struggle against people faster than you. Aejaz, you’re no good at capitalising on the openings you create. Therefore Aejaz, you will be sparring with Li Li. Li Li, you''ll be wearing weights while you fight. Aejaz, you’ll exclusively use a dagger, and not your hands. The first to one hundred hits wins. The loser will be punished by me in some manner, you really don’t wanna know how. Esme, you primarily rely on mana to fight but you don’t have much of it, so I want you to focus on expanding your mana pool by repeatedly exhausting it. Ares, you’ll be fighting me. Your mana pool is fine thanks to that art of yours, defensively your race is unbeatable, you’re quick enough as is, and you’re not lacking on the offensive front. The only thing I can really help you with is weapon wielding and general technique, so we’ll fight while cycling through random weaponry, and I’ll give you advice as we go.”


    When Sadie was done handing out assignments, Enyo mentioned that she’d already been working on an offensive art, partly due to Ares’ pestering, and that she was going to focus on that for now before requiring Sadie’s assistance with learning to wield the spear. An evil smile crept up on Sadie’s face as not having to spend time with Enyo meant she had more time to batter Ares around and the thought of it was incredibly enticing. “Ares, I heard you''re highly proficient in runemancy so, before we start, could you set up a Training Field?”


    Training Field was the art of the formation aspect that Julio had used previously for the earlier competition. At a basic level, anyone who died within the formation would be brought back to life, thus allowing for more realistic and brutal training. Changes could be made at will to it, like the timer/tag settings, so typically at least one runemancer in any given sect would be capable of creating this formation for the sake of the disciples.


    Ares busied himself and took roughly five minutes to set it up. During which there was one particularly strange incident in which a fang-shaped runic symbol Ares was unfamiliar with cropped up in his omniscience. This occurrence on its own was nothing special, Ares was hardly a runemancer so he naturally wasn’t familiar with every single base rune out there, but what was strange was that he hadn’t seen this particular one when he first used omniscience on Julio’s Training Field. In other words, Ares’ version was going to do or have something extra compared to Julio’s, but he had no idea what exactly. The training field was up and running and visually identical to Julio’s so Ares couldn’t tell at a glance what had changed. Rather than dwell on it any longer, however, Ares just decided to ignore it for now. He would either find out during training or it would be inconsequential and never matter… Or so he hoped. Ares couldn’t shake the gut feeling that the base rune was important, otherwise his omniscience wouldn’t have shown him it. Still, it’s not like he could do anything about it so he distracted himself by taking a look around at the rest of the room. However, what Ares didn’t know was that this rune was actually incredibly important for reasons he wouldn’t be aware of until much later.


    Until it was far too late and his fate would already be sealed.


    Esme and Enyo, meanwhile, were adjusting their mental states in preparation for their training, and Li Li, Aejaz, and Sadie were raring to start their fights. Well, sort of. Aejaz wasn’t exactly pleased to be fighting a CQC fighter as strong and skilled as Li Li, and she wasn’t happy about the thought of trying to hit Aejaz of all people while wearing weights. Neither of them was thrilled about the looming punishment either, so the atmosphere surrounding those two was both competitive and tense. Per Sadie’s next request, Ares also went back and added a function to the Training Field that would give either of them an electric shock if they used the same weapon for more than fifteen seconds. Ares had never used this rune before so if there was anything strange about the runic symbols he used in its creation, he simply couldn’t tell. It looked normal and functioned normally too though, so probably not.


    Ares stood up when he was finally done and walked over to Sadie who took a plethora of weapons out of her space ring and littered them around the immediate area. It was as if Ares was standing in war-torn no-man’s land with blades, bullets, and arrows strewn across the floor. He readied himself as Sadie lowered her cultivation to match his. Ares tried to warn Sadie that just matching his cultivation wouldn’t be enough, but she shrugged off his advice, causing Ares to shake his head with a pitying, lopsided smile that openly displayed his scepticism at her unfounded confidence. She would have to learn the hard way.


    Off to the side, Li Li and Aejaz were staring each other down, waiting for the other to make the first move. Enyo stood up from her meditation and took a deep breath, ready to try out her new art, while Esme took out her fans to begin casting arts. Ares and Sadie stepped into the Training Field and…


    BANG


    Everyone in the room nearly fell flat on their faces as the door to the training room was swung wide open, ruining all the pent-up excitement. Through the door strutted a man Ares had seen once before; a strangely dressed man with even stranger habits. The man in question turned to face Ares before scrutinising him and nodding to himself. “I knew it. It simply must be you.” The man pointed at Ares in an incredibly dramatic fashion with a lavish, silver pen resting between his fingertips. “Ares, I’m here to capture you!”


    ““... Huh?””