What were these little guys doing with this formerly useless treasure? He could make some guesses, but something else happened almost immediately.

One of the black ones sent what looked like a palm strike fighting technique his way. It looked cute at first. But then it hit him, and something immediately felt wrong.

Rafe remembered this feeling well. He felt this disoriented the first time Goleon forcibly extracted his soul from his body. But since then Rafe remembered extracting his soul from his body at least a hundred times, so what could cause him such disorientation?

He soon found out. It was because his soul was not fully extracted from his body. They were still connected by a little thread.

And then he saw the thread shining with many transcendent colours, reminding him of something. Looking at his body, the tattoos that had adorned it since he left the first Skyholm trial were no where to be seen.

And what was more, there was an old feather trapped in this little light thread. He remembered he did not have a storage ability when he first took this feather from Sendriel at that time, so it had been stored in the librarian.

The librarian was a strange almost living artifact that could bond with both his spiritual and physical body. It was because of this artifact that his first racial ability was mutated into an ability similar to an innate ability the first Skyholm used thousands of years ago.

It was also because of this artifact that Rafe had a pseudo-class skill. He was yet to use said skill, but now that its rank was high enough, he could possibly use it.

The feather was a very high level treasure, although he wasn't clear on why it was able to integrate with the librarian. No, not integrate really. It was still its own treasure, merely being stored in the librarian artifact.

And now that feather was on fire, clearly reacting to the phoenix egg. The fire didn't burn Rafe, luckily, but it still made him uncomfortable.

Rafe remembered it was because of this feather he was able to touch upon the concept of fate and therefore activate his quest system prematurely. He was pretty sure that was not the reason he got this feather from the gods of Skyholm though.

The pixie-like creatures leisurely chatted as they surrounded the egg. Then one came forward and pulled a few flaming barbs out of the feather. The feather was already old and its hairs were scattered and looked dried. Taking those three barbs made it look like an old and burning chicken feather.

And then the pixies carried out some kind of ritual. He saw something flowing out of the phoenix egg. It looked like its internal contents, because he could see a viscous fluid among them. Then the tiny unreactive pixie that was an amalgamation of all of them was brought forward. Three flaming phoenix barbs, the internal contents of a phoenix egg, and something that should not be alive.

A sharp light suddenly appeared when they met, blinding Rafe.

Rafe's eyes snapped open, and he found himself staring up at a blue ceiling, still within the office. He wasn't sure how much time had passed, but the pixies were still there. At least a few of them. There was something wet on his face.

He touched it, and it was slimy and had a familiar smell. The slightly pungent smell of the internal contents of an egg. And there were rough particles mixed within the fluid. The egg shell.

Rafe crinkled his nose in disgust, and went to rub his face. Suddenly a pixie started chattering.

Soon, all the pixies were flying around his head and chattering and raising their fists in warning.

"I can't understand what you're saying," Rafe complained.

"They said don't take the egg bits off for now. Since your treasure had been used by them, they intend to pay you back this way."

The voice came out of nowhere, shocking Rafe into sitting up. He looked around for the owner of the voice. And then his eyes landed on the mirror he had always been suspicious of.

Two women stood there instead of his reflection, and there was the ghost of a familiar aura from it. One of these women was not simple, and the other wasn't far off either.

"Who are you?!" Rafe growled.

"You need not be so wary of us, young hero. We are friends," the older of the two women said.

Rafe wanted to laugh. Could anyone really trust someone who introduced themselves that way? It was only because Rafe was scared that he was still even in this room. After all, wasn't he finished with his objective for coming here.

Suddenly, one of the little pixies chattered loudly from a corner of the room.

Rafe looked over instinctively.

The pixie was hovering over a pod. A few of the other pixies who could still afford to flew over and started chattering slowly. Then they all uniformly looked to Rafe in a somewhat creepy manner.

"They think you should save that girl," the voice in the mirror said.

"I only rescued these guys because it was benefitual to me," Rafe said. "Why would I care about that person?"

The woman in the mirror shrugged. "The pod does have a strong pull of fate. Just so you know, this girl was only twelve when she entered that pod, and she has been asleep all these years, basically. Now she has reached the C grade without any life experience. Imagine having her as one of your followers?"

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Rafe only looked at the mirror defiantly. If only there wasn't a subtle pressure coming from it, he would have already bolted from this room.

"Boy, why do you look so wary of us? You haven't even once looked at our faces, and I can tell it's not because you are looking at our chests. Are you scared of us? How can that be? I clearly saw a large piece of the librarian, and Sendriel's feather, even that egg…"

The way she said that last part was different. Then she sighed and continued, "you want a benefit? Aren't you the slightest bit interested in Liam's soul architect abilities?"

There she was again, speaking of Rafe's old mentors like they were old friends or something. No wonder her aura seemed very familiar.

Rafe forced himself to stand on shaky legs. He walked toward the pod and looked at it. The woman inside was some kind of elf.

Rafe couldn't look at her face for long, so he did not study too much of it. Instead he activated his racial ability. He studied the girl's soul. He couldn't see much yet as he was too weak, but he saw enough to know just how twisted the girl's soul was.

Liam learnt soul architecture himself. His soul was broken into fragments, and he had to fix it himself. Now Rafe had a safer way to practice. Practicing on another individual, but this girl had been in this pod for probably hundreds of years. Wouldn't him taking her just be for further experimentation. Would that be better for her or worse?

He was supposed to be saving her from being experimented on, but he was instead going to experiment on her.

"How can I save her?" Rafe asked, just to buy time.

The woman in the mirror sighed. "I guess I'm too late. You have a special storage ability, do you not?"

Indeed, Rafe also suspected since he couldn't save the girl there and then, he had to keep her in his soul void. The description did say he could store living beings in there. He figured he'd have to take the pod as well, because he wanted to study it and he also didn't know if the girl would die once she got out of the pod. Although he figured she probably wouldn't based on the fact that the pixies advocated for her. It wasn't that she was special, but that she was probably the most likely to survive. Or so Rafe speculated.

"You said before that the pixies were trying to pay me back? How, by breaking an egg on my head?" he tried to sound defiant, but his voice broke a little.

"Ignore the egg. You won't need your body later today anyway, so what need has it of being clean?!" the woman snapped.

Rafe jumped up like a startled mouse, turning back to look at the mirror, his body shaking.

"Someone already got to you, huh?"

"What are you—"

"I wanted to warn you about this, but it seems I'm too late. Your body can't handle the fate trapped in it, so occasionally some will leak out. Your body is like a natural treasure right now. Some people sensitive to these kinds of things will want to… devour you."

"What are you talking about?" Rafe asked, his wariness replaced with curiosity and a little alarm.

"Listen, do you think you're so handsome that girls would just throw themselves at you wherever you go? Even my companion, a C grade user can't seem to resist the temptation."

Rafe looked to the woman's left. The second woman had long flowing white hair and deep blue eyes. Her face was well proportioned. So well proportioned in fact, it looked almost unnatural. She was like an exquisite statue standing there expressionlessly. There was a hint of red in her cheeks though.

Rafe only looked at her for a moment. He didn't dare study the shape of her body or anything. He even found himself taking a step back.

"Yes," the first woman said with a sad sigh. "Experience is the best teacher unfortunately. You should be more wary from now on. But don't worry about us. We can't even cross into the tutorial sector."

"What do you want?" Rafe asked, his eyes fixed on the floor.

He heard the woman sigh again. "We are almost out of time anyway. We will have to meet again in the future, when your mind is more settled. Stay in the tutorial sector for now and get stronger. Sally, open the box."

The second woman did as instructed without saying anything. Suddenly, a yellow radiance filled the mirror, like a tiny sun. Rafe felt the very pores of his body vibrate with greed.

He did not know how, but by the time he came back to his senses he was directly in front of the mirror.

The stronger of the two women shook her head in mock disappointment. "You have worked with gods for a long time, boy. Do you think anything in this world is free?"

Rafe looked down at the now closed box. He couldn't think of anything to give these two powerful women for it.

"What is it you want? I don't have anything too valuable right now, but maybe I will get something as a reward for this quest chain and give it to you after the battle today."

"You have lots of treasures with you," the woman spoke. "A person of fate may just have something my Sally needs. Besides, we can only use this function of the mirror once anyway, so this is your only chance until you leave the tutorial sector. What do you need, Sally girl?"

"Ah… I would like to keep leveling up?" the girl said.

Rafe made an ugly expression. How was he supposed to help a C grade woman level up? With his body?

"I see you don't understand." The first woman spoke more confidently than her friend. "The people in charge have issued orders for the young lady to stop advancing. We are looking for a way to keep advancing but not disobey. For example, with the veil skill that thief gave you, you are able to let others see whatever level you wish them to. That is what she was referring to. Maybe you have a way to help her learn this skill or…"

But Rafe was already scrolling through his status screen, excited. The first reward he ever got from the quest system was a pair of earrings he couldn't use because they were so shiny. Could it be that the system foresaw this moment in advance?

It was possible. There was a celestial in charge of the river of fate as far as Rafe remembered.

"Will these do?" Rafe asked confidently.

The first woman scanned the earrings and sacked in a breath. Then she looked at her partner and nodded. The woman who was called Sally pushed the box she was holding towards Rafe.

Rafe frowned for a moment, but then he pushed the earrings onto the mirror, and it's surface rippled.

One second Rafe was holding two earrings, and the next he was holding a box in his hand. The box's attraction to him had grown by a magnitude of four or more.

Without waiting a moment more, Rafe opened the box and put the shining fruit in it in his mouth.

He couldn't describe the taste. Like a mango, an apple, a jackfruit combined. It was like all the tastiest fruits he remembered consuming, and only their best qualities. Its juice was like the sweetest aged wine.

'Ding': You have acquired the passive skill Lucky Pick (mythical). This skill cannot grow stronger. You have a seventy-five percent chance of getting the reward you need the most from a quest or from a dungeon drop. If it is a dungeon with specific rewards, you have an eighty-five percent chance of getting the highest quality reward.

'Ding': You have acquired the passive skill Toss A Coin (legendary). This skill cannot grow stronger. You have a one percent chance of connecting your skills to the luck stat whenever you attempt an unexplored upgrade path.

'Ding': You have gained ten points to your luck stat.

'Ding': Special quest completed.

Objective: Learn a legendary skill as an F grade.

Warning: Your body and soul are too weak to accept such a skill.

Note: This skill is a luck based passive skill, so it does not require a lot of your internal energy to function.

Rewards: +3 free stats, 10, 000 credits, 10,000 quest points.

Special quest completed.

Objective: Learn a mythical skill as an F grade.

Rewards: Seven souls soul nurturing pill, 500 E grade credits, 20,000 quest points.

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