Riveting Night walked along the pathway she had chosen, Warm Spring walking silently behind her, her steps erratic and her staff gripped tightly in her hands. To say that she was nervous was an understatement.
It couldn't be helped. Even without her aura, Riveting Night was too scary. With her dark hood that looked like the portal into a bottomless abyss, she was no different from those antagonists that seemed infallible.
When Riveting Night suddenly stopped, Warm Spring became alert and worried. She peeked over Riveting Night's shoulder to see what the problem was, but all Warm Spring saw was a chest that was placed against a small rock.
She was startled at first, but soon calmed down. In fact, she felt a slight bit of excitement.
This was normal, as chests were the gateways to loot. As a player, Warm Spring was like every other gamer, in the sense that loot could send her to heaven from hell.
Its grade looked high too. It seemed to be a Rare Chest! Such a chest had a 30% chance to spit out a Rare item, which was sorely needed at this stage.
After all, not everyone was a beast like Draco, who could effectively manipulate his benefits of reincarnation to acquire the impossible Legendary and even a Divine item(s).
To the common player, forget Legendary, even Epic was a far off dream. Of course, there were always those who had that bloody dogshit luck and could strike gold.
The drop rate for Epic items was 0.1% for monsters above Major Rank. Major Rank monsters were Regional Boss monsters, just two levels below an absolute unit like Qiong Qi.
For the lower levels, the drop rate fell farther and farther to the point where it wasn't even listed.
Still, among the currently playing three million players, and even the soon to come billions of players, there were those who had that heavenly favor to acquire unfair boons.
In fact, looking at the statistics, it would actually be extremely impractical and illogical for no one to fall into such a category of lucky people. After all, if we considered it from the perspective of one person, it was clearly a pipe dream to get such items.
But when so many people were added, with that same probability, there would be a select few who could gain the seemingly impossible.
Riveting Night made no move to claim the chest. Instead she fished three throwing knives from her inventory and threw them out rapidly. Her trajectory was nowhere near the chest, rather aimed towards the general surroundings.
Warm Spring couldn't help but feel like the Vice Guildmaster was being a bit too superfluous. Warm Spring was aware of traps around chests and even knew of the hated mimic monsters, but there should be a much more intuitive way to investigate, no?
Of course, that was just a surface thought. Her respect for Riveting Night's prowess made her feel like it was more the case where the Vice Guildmaster was aware of some extra circ.u.mstances and was guarding against that.
After throwing out knives for a bit, Riveting Night stopped and harrumphed coldly.
Her form began to shine as a swirl of black light erupted from her hood. It looked like two small and black vortexes that were consuming all the light and space around her.
She was using a bloodline technique!
The Amaterasu bloodline also had three Inheritances. In fact, it was true for all the Ruler class Lineages. Pangu, Amaterasu and Lucifer had three Inheritances.
The Advisor class Lineages had only two Inheritances. They were the Buddha, Merlin and Zeus Lineages.
The Vassal class Lineages had only one Inheritance, which was why they were the weakest. This included the Morrigan, Anansi and Ilah Lineages.
Amaterasu was typically described as a celestial maiden of incomparable beauty. If one were to head to the ancestral home of the Amaterasu Lineage in Japan, one's eyes might lose their color if they peered at their collective beauty for too long.
Majority of the world's most beautiful women, those celebrities and idols who were lauded as being heavenly beauties, were from their clan in one way or another. The truly scary part was that these worldwide beauties were only the outer members who weren't acknowledged, having to fend for themselves.
However, upon deeper inspection, one would also find that Amaterasu was described as the Goddess of the Sun. However, it wasn't in terms of the sun's fiery properties, which was Yang in nature.
It was mostly in regards to the sun's light, which shined upon the world and illuminated the heavens.
Amaterasu's main property were light-based powers, which was a contrast to Lucifer's dark-based powers. However, they had been able to find common ground between light and dark, which was why Pangu sometimes had sleepless nights thinking about a child born from them.
Wielding the power of the dark, which promised endless power, and of the light, which promised endless life, such a child would be feared even by the Heavenly Emperor.
The first Inheritance of the Amaterasu Bloodline was called the Goddess of Light Inheritance. This particular bloodline trait allowed the descendants of Amaterasu to purify all evil in the world, and ghosts and malicious beings feared them to death.
Some of the weaker Amaterasu Lineage girls would become Shrine Maidens while the weaker males would become Exorcists, two notable fields of occupation in ancient Japan.
This Inheritance had only offensive power, and could assault anything possessing evil. In truth, 'evil' was a very vague and subjective term. Evil required there to be good and bad, which were both reliant on morals.
Morals were in turn subjective creations by the dominant party in any sapient society, meaning it could change as long as a new dominant party appeared that felt differently about the matter.
As such, the true terrifying ability of the Goddess of Light Inheritance was its subjectivity. In other words, whatever the Amaterasu Lineage members considered to be evil could be assaulted through use of this bloodline trait.
This was an Inheritance that was geared to fight the supernatural and supernormal, how could the average man stand up to it? In terms of raw offensive power, it was closely tied with the Lucifer Lineage's Horned Demon Inheritance.
The second Inheritance was the Celestial Maiden Inheritance. This was an auxiliary Inheritance that was of a support type, similar to the Dark Angel Inheritance of the Lucifer Lineage.
This was the source of the heavenly beauty of the Amaterasu Lineage descendants. In terms of raw looks, the Celestial Maiden Inheritance was slightly stronger than the Dark Angel Inheritance.
It could not be helped. The female form was worshipped among the human race, so naturally a female beauty was much more potent than a male beauty. An auxiliary effect of this Inheritance was the ability to manipulate the minds of others.
The Lucifer Lineage's Dark Angel Inheritance's auxiliary effect was psychic abilities, which focused on using one's own mind to perform certain feats. The Amaterasu Lineage's Celestial Maiden Inheritance's auxiliary effect focused on controlling another's mind to achieve certain effects.
Similar, but different.
The final Inheritance was the Abyssal Eye Inheritance. This particular bloodline trait focused on using ocular techniques that were extremely esoteric and otherworldly.
The Abyssal Eye Inheritance had a long list of techniques that came with it, but its main function was to summon various aspects of Amaterasu and her relations, as well as to peer into the eyes of the heavens.
Right now, Riveting Night was using an Abyssal Eye technique called Vortex. She was swallowing all light and space before her into her personal dimension in her Abyssal Eye Inheritance's bloodline.
For the record, she had no idea what was in there or even how to remove anything from there. Everything she swallowed up could be considered as gone forever.
Of course, to use such a skill took away a lot of power. Her Bloodline purity was slightly lower than Draco's, which was at 95%. Riveting Night's was at 80%, so she could not muster as much power as Draco could.
However, she had the best training possible, meaning that there was no wastage in her usage. Unlike Draco who wantonly spent bloodline power for even the simplest moves, Riveting Night spent as little as possible, even when using such a draining skill.
The result of her efforts was that a large monster that was made up of a huge eyeball and tentacles was pulled out of the void beside the chest. It was a Beholder!
It had a mouth with rows of sharp teeth, and at the end of each tentacle was a smaller eyeball.
｢Name: Mini-Beholder – Specialist Rank monster
Level: 12
HP: 900/900｣
When Warm Spring saw this ugly monster, she blanched and stepped back instinctively. It was totally different to see such a monster through a screen and seeing it in what was almost real life.
The instinctual horror, that irrational human fear, washed over her senses.
The same couldn't be said for Riveting Night as she stood firm. She reached a hand out to Warm Spring and firmly pushed her behind herself.
"Stay behind me, I'll handle this."
Riveting Night's sonorous and lovely voice was like the tinkling of bells of Warm Spring and her heart began to thump a little as her face flushed.
"Okay…"
Seeing that her trainee was settled, Riveting Night stopped using bloodline techniques because they were too costly. She was in a game world, so there were a myriad of other ways to vanquish evil.
Riveting Night crouched low, like a viper about to strike. Her breathing became steady and her posture taut.
The groggy Beholder managed to regain clarity and roared with anger. How dare this piece of food even attempt to fight back? Her destiny was to be devoured by it, so how dare she reject such good grace?
The typical fighting style of Beholders was either through mental manipulation or beams of light, both of which just happened to be what the Amaterasu Lineage was good at.
The Beholder got to understand the unfairness of 'same element immunity', when a beam of yellowish light that it fired from its auxiliary eyes was directly slapped away by Riveting Night.
Of course, Riveting Night did not use her bare hands to do so, but rather coated her palms with her own light energy. Hers was much purer and finer, something which a mere Mini-Beholder would never be able to emulate.
With a roar, it decided to up the tempo but firing a deluge of beams, using its flexible tentacles to place each eyeball in a position that would allow the fired beams to merge halfway through the shot.
The converged beam was truly heartstopping to look at, with its size and speed. Yet, Riveting Night used two hands to grab this beam of light before throwing it aside like it was some filth.
This did extreme mental and emotional damage to the beholder. It was the equivalent of having a girl pull down your pants and begin to laugh when she saw what you considered to be your donger of power.
Riveting Night flitted forward, her momentum extreme and ephemeral. In terms of movement, she was far more profound than Draco. Her body flitted around like a leaf in the wind, steadily approaching the Mini-Beholder while avoiding its fired beams.
Seeing her continue to approach without being stopped, the Beholder finally began to panic as the feeling of demise washed over it. It could smell the stench of the River Styx, as well as hear the calls of the boatman.
With a roar, it finally used its central eye to cast a wide range light beam that was supported by all its small eyeballs. At this point, conserving energy to deal with the second human was pointless if it died here.
Unfortunately, its desperate attack simply curved around Riveting Night, like some sort of light shield had enveloped her. This allowed her to burst with maximal forward momentum, using her short swords to slice the Mini-Beholder into two halves!
A Specialist Rank monster with almost a 1000 hp had been killed in one hit!
When Warm Spring saw this, her small eyes widened like saucers. She wasn't like typical players who were largely ignorant of the difference in monster ranks. A Specialist was a monster that a party of four equal level semi-pros could barely vanquish.
There were of course, pros and experts who could solo a Specialist monster, as everyone got used to the combat system of Boundless, but they could not do so in one hit.
The Vice Guildmaster was a human monster!
Riveting Night shook her hands a little, allowing her short swords to dissipate like mist as they returned to her inventory. Her eyes locked onto the chest and she gestured to the frozen Warm Spring.
"Open it."
Her command to Warm Spring startled her. She didn't expect to be the one to receive this honor, but she didn't waste the Vice Guildmaster's time. She directly walked up to the chest, took it and opened it.
A warm light glowed from the chest as the lid opened to reveal an item laying within.
Warm Spring took out the item and was startled to find that it was a long white staff that was smooth and jade-like. At the top was a light blue gem that reflected gentle colors.
One could not help but get a positive feeling when looking at it.
｢Noble Light – Stave (Holymancer only)
Rank: Rare
Heal spd: 13
Heal: 135-256
Effect: Healing mastery +20, Healing boost +40%｣
It was all around a pretty good Rare item, but what made Warm Spring slightly baffled was the (Holymancer only) tag on the item. How could she have drawn an item that was not only Rare, but just so happened to be class locked?
Riveting Night gazed at the weapon and nodded. "This is your first lesson. A Holymancer is the Child of the Gods and the world is your cradle. You have no attacking power whatsoever, but your ability to heal is unmatched."
Riveting Night crossed her arms and spoke softly. "The world is fair, despite what people believe. For every convenience, there is an equal and opposite inconvenience and vice versa. More often than not, people are either unwilling or unable to turn their situation around."
Riveting Night pointed to Warm Spring this time. "You are different. For the purpose of Boundless, consider the Holymancer class to be similar to those Sons and Daughters of Heaven from Asian lore. Even when you face death that should be inescapable, you will have a path to survival always present, as long as you can grasp it."
"Let me guess, you allocated your points mostly into luck, intelligence and spirit, right?"
Warm Spring was shocked at first, but soon found it reasonable. To be able to guess her point allocation should be obvious enough if the Vice Guildmaster already knew so much about her class.
"Mmhm. I chose those three stats because… I wanted to be a lucky mage…"
Her cute face reddened as she admitted this and her glasses drooped a bit. She clutched he stave tightly and slightly lowered her head.
She had been called childish and immature for her age for so long that she believed that anything she did fell into that category. However, instead of being mocked, she was stunned to hear Riveting Night's reply.
"Brilliant idea. Luck is an immensely important stat in the end game. You had the right idea, which was why you were awarded such a powerful class."
Riveting Night only said this casually and was her honest opinion. This mentally ill woman would never praise someone other than Draco, unless what the person did was genuinely clever and deserved it no matter what.
She didn't think it would be a big deal, but to Warm Spring, it was.
To a wealthy upper-class fellow, buying a meal for a homeless person wasn't a big deal, he spent much more during dates and stuff. However, to the homeless man, this was no different from being cared for by an angel.
To an introverted and shy person like Warm Spring, hearing such praise was like being bathed in the waters of heaven. Especially since the Vice Guildmaster was so scary and evil. Such a person would not care for her feelings when speaking.
To give out such praise and so casually, it was a rare occurrence for the usually mocked and bullied Warm Spring. Her emotions roiled about and her mind spun.
In truth, this was how people usually became attached to others. By giving them something they never had or were deprived of, a sudden emotional attachment would form that made the latter party vulnerable.
Now, Riveting Night was more than just a Vice Guildmaster to Warm Spring.
She clutched the edge of her robe and mustered up her courage, speaking out shakily and hesitantly.
"T-Thank you… B-Big S-Sister…"
Her breathing stilled as she waited tepidly for Riveting Night's response.
However, instead of being reprimanded, she felt a gentle pat on her head. She looked up to see Riveting Night's hood near her face, and within, she could barely see a visage that almost made her mind shatter.
No one should be that beautiful… it went against the heavens will…
"If you want to be my Little Sister, I do not mind. However, I have high requirements for my Little Sisters, so you have to keep up."
Warm Spring shook off her shock and her eyes gleamed with excitement, fulfillment and relief.
"Yes!"
That one word contained her conviction to become the best she could be, not only for her new Big Sister, but for herself.
Riveting Night nodded. This Warm Spring's character was truly good, she really liked her. As such, Riveting Night planned to add a bit more to Warm Spring's training for her own benefit.
Turning around, Riveting Night walked briskly. She half-turned to Warm Spring and said;
"Try to keep up. We have a lot to cover."