Excerpt from The Profound and Pretty Princess' Ultimate Guide to Cultivation, Captivation, Cuteness, and Carving Your Way to the Top, English Edition (the worst-selling guide in the history of Putijama)

On Ignition and Age (Humans)

There are many superstitions by village around the perfect age to Ignite your children's Cores.

In the Kingdom of Verdant Earth, the law says they must be six but twelve to thirteen is highly recommended. Anything below ten is considered risky at best.

In the Monetary Might Kingdom, there are no laws. Little is known about the Kingdoms across the sea.

From experiments done by less-than-ethical people, children under six certainly don't have fully developed essence channels and Igniting their Cores will lead to significantly reduced essence channel capacity. It cripples their ability to cultivate for little gain.

For those under a year old, there is about a 20% mortality rate simply by performing an Ignition, no matter the essence type. The essence overwhelms their channels and explodes their Core.

Superstitions about the perfect age and how Igniting on a certain birthday or moon cycle or while wearing the family's lucky pants persist despite extensive study showing it's all a load of hooey.

Whether you are using affinity-less essence or your local colored variety, it is recommended you wait until you don't damage your kids. Don't be an asshat, wait until it's safe.

While the same questions about Ignition and age have been asked of the sentient beasts, their response from a bear representative was to 'mind your damn beeswax, and stay away from mine'. 🐻🍯🐝

A loud pounding woke me from my dream I was increasingly sure was a car crash. Possibly merely a vivid recurring nightmare but it also felt real. Like it was something I lived. The pain all across my body was familiar.

Putting on my shirt while rolling my eyes at the increasing volume of the knocking, I opened my door. Pavel was standing directly in front, Inara off to the side. I could easily guess which one was making the racket at her impish grin.

"Yeah?" I asked, still bleary from only getting a few hours of sleep. Steve made a noise half between a burble and a chirp.

"Time to go. We have an escort to Struva. They sent us fast horses that are Tiered up, meant to make the journey very quick. Usually at least <six hours> if you run or far more by cart. Should only be <three hours> instead." Pavel waved like I should just follow immediately; I shut the door in his face.

I heard a soft sigh and a muffled 'Rude' through the door, one of the words I had to learn early when Tilda gave me language lessons.

"Okay Steve, big day of delving. Three delves, two with the team, let's go!" I picked him up and spun him around every twenty seconds to his delight as I collected my things over a few minutes. Choosing comfort over riding in my gear, I donned a simple outfit and headed downstairs.

Pavel seemed to think we were going to head straight out the door but I headed directly to my favorite innkeeper first. I shoveled a bit of food into my and Steve's mouths before I let the man escort me out. Inara stayed behind and ate off my plate before sprinting to catch up as we made haste to the eastern gate.

There was a man waiting with three utterly massive horses, with a double saddle on each. "Here to escort five delvers to the Struva area? Only contracted for the day, so let's hurry up. Wait, where's the fifth?" He looked at me, Romie, Inara, and Pavel. I laughed and pointed at Steve. "Damnit, could have brought a less expensive horse for me. Well, you four, two to a horse. Get to it."

Looking to Romie as my obvious travel companion, Inara leapt over and snaked her arm through the archer's. "Nope, Romie and me, you have to be with Mr. Boring-Pants."

Pavel rolled his eyes. "One bad story and I am relegated for the week. Well Terry, you want to be in front or behind?" Looking at my backpack for Steve, which I decided was probably the better choice rather than trying to hold him the entire trip – the little bugger was likely to try to jump off – I chose back.

Despite the incredible speed, the horses' hooves clomped rather quietly. It was almost like a cheetah, though we seemed to be going far faster than even they could.

"Pavel, you mentioned they Tiered up the horses. How does that work?" I asked.

"Eh, mundane animals only get a little out of essence – their channels are totally garbage. But it still can help a bit and these are Tier 5 and a special breed used for this essentially. As tough as they look, they are utterly useless in combat; speed and comfort only. But yeah, you can Tier up beasts, it's just very rarely worth it. Even at Tier 5, they are maybe twice what a mundane version would be, though it all goes to physical cultivation."

The rolling hills of green that were clearly slowly shifting to yellow – the land was feeling the impact of losing the green essence zone more than even the people – flowed behind us as we passed two hours into our journey without anything of note.

Fields of grain slowly transitioned into wild grasses gently shifting in the breeze, making a soft but soothing rustle. We began to see patches of wildflowers and the air smelled slightly sweet.

That's when things started to look familiar.

Very familiar.

The small forest we were skirting alongside had towering trees that reminded me of an old grove forest from just outside Chicago.

And my first moments on Putijama.

I noticed a few puffs of smoke rising above the trees and thought I saw something in a clearing deeper in, though it was much too far to see precisely, especially at our speed.

"Pull over," I said to Pavel. When he didn't immediately listen, I said it far louder, though as friendly as I could. He looked confused but acquiesced. "I think this might be where I… landed? Not sure of the right word. This looks like where I woke up."

Pavel whistled loudly to signal Romie to pull their horse off too, circling back to us. I quickly explained and the four of us decided to head in.

"Wait, one of us should stay back here with Steve," I said, learning from my past mistakes.

"What's the hold up? We have a schedule to keep." Our escort, who still hadn't given a name, was looking nonplussed.

"Uh, can you watch my bond? We need to investigate something," I said, holding Steve out hopefully to the Tier 2 man.

He looked confused as I deposited the sugar glider in his arms. "Uh, sure I guess?" I handed him a bag of snacks which he started eating himself before realizing they were for Steve at the little booger's indignant noises and attempts to climb into said snack bag.

We quickly donned our armor and started to discuss tactics, deciding formation twelve – me at the head with Pavel to my right and Inara to my left with Romie roaming behind. That way, I could potentially cover Inara with my shield and Pavel could do the same for me.

It was generally a very low-Tier area and there were no reports of a rift break in the last few years so it seemed pretty safe. With our plan and formation set, we headed into the woods slowly, keeping as quiet as possible.

Suddenly, a boar was charging at me, squealing like I had murdered its parents and it was on a suicide mission to take me out in an act of revenge.

Or just loudly, like pigs do.

I danced away, swinging my shield at its head as it passed by in an attempt to daze it before following up with my new morningstar, colorful if solely decorative flames blazing down its haft, ready to rain terror on my foe.

Instead, my light shield swing knocked the beast on its side as it gave a pitiful squeak, falling unconscious.

Oh yeah, mundane animals are weak.

"Oh no! Mr. Oinkington! What have you done!?" a small voice yelled from farther into the trees.

A squirrel about two feet tall emerged, looking furious at me and shaking a finger like our sizes were reversed and she was over three times my height. She was barefoot but otherwise dressed like most of the people I'd seen in the cities, sporting a nice blue cardigan with pink and brown capri pants that crimped at her calves.

Do squirrels have calves? Surely, right?

Not being able to hold in my laugh, I excused myself for a moment. Inara swooped in to do the talking, quickly mollifying the young girl by showing her the pig was merely knocked out and was actually coming around quickly.

I took out a length of rope and tied it around the pig's middle before it could get too agitated again but it wasn't necessary. Mr. Oinkington was completely docile, snuggling up against the much smaller squirrel as we walked her back to her home.

All I could think about was that her parents might be able to direct me to the rolling pin-wielding menace that had walloped my shins a few times in my first minutes on Putijama. Strategizing what I'd say didn't make me the best conversationalist so, other than my apology, I continued to let Inara and Pavel mostly entertain the small troublemaker.

Apparently the pig had broken from his pen while they were playing a game and took off when she used the dreaded word of bath. Even at hearing the harrowing term, the pig oinked sadly.

As we entered a small clearing around an enormous tree, I took in the girl's home. It had a door and windows embedded into the trunk, like so many fairytale creatures that created arboreal residences.

Despite my awe at the sight, I was more focused on my impending trouble.

A large squirrel, in the same housedress and armed with presumably the same rolling pin, was holding out her weapon of choice, pointed at me. "You! What have you done with my daughter!? Diacorna, get behind me and away from that miscreant! At least you're wearing pants this time you pervert," she spat at me.

At the utterly bewildered looks on my teammates' faces, I rolled my eyes at the squirrel and crossed my arms.

"Yeah, just gonna clear the air. I was basically kidnapped and thrown into some place near here naked. It's a long story but the gist is I woke up in a creepy facility next to a dead guy with no clothes and no real idea where I was. Even thought it was a silly dream." I paused to see if she'd push back but she just kept her narrowed eyes on me.

"So, I came out, found you, and you attacked. Instead of helping an innocent person… essentially, you tried to kill a kidnapping victim." I tried to inject some hurt into my voice. It wasn't a great analogy but I needed to get her to think she was in the wrong to help me. Just asking for her help now seemed like an exceedingly bad strategy.

I mean, would you help the guy who you caught wandering naked through your front yard?

Isekonsultant Tip to Thriving #38: When facing someone you know you can't get over to your side by being reasonable, if you need them on your side, the only logical reaction is to be unreasonable. How you go about that is situationally dependent.

Before either of us could follow-up, Diacorna screeched with excitement and danced around a bit, yelling, "You attacked Terry? And you give me grief for hitting my brothers! Wait, there's a dead body?! Where? I want to see! Moooooommmmm-ah, can we go see the dead body? I bet it's all gross like in the programs!" Then she started shadow boxing for no apparent reason other than to presumably spend her high energy.

"See what you've done?" her mother said in exasperation.

"You mean stopped her pet from rampaging through the forest, likely saving at least one of them from being hurt?" The squirrel rolled her eyes in exasperation.

I tried a different tack. "Look, I get it. You don't like me and I fully get why. It's actually reasonable. I was a victim of circumstance but still, I was a crazy naked guy on your front lawn. The earlier you let me check out the area looking for this facility I woke up in, the earlier I am out of your hair. Or fur I guess." I was tired and a bit snippy but still felt pressing the 'just cooperate enough to get me to leave' strategy was working.

After a long pause, the Scuridae sighed and nodded. "Fine, fine. Until recently, every few weeks we'd see or hear something weird about <a quarter mile> (400m) up that way," she said pointing. "And, uh, thanks for stopping the pig. That thing is a menace…"

Without another word, I started heading the direction she pointed and heard the pleading squeaks of young Diacorna fading into the background.

I found the facility entrance easily, a metallic door barring our way. Again, just like at the other facility we found, I felt something pull on the energy in my ring before it slid open noiselessly. As the others couldn't see through the obscurement array, I dragged them in after me.

"It stinks but not as bad as I'd expect?" Inara said as we walked slowly down the hall, glow stones deployed to better assist the muted lighting.

We moved forwards slowly, jointly reacting to each faint echo or sound, shields and weapons at the ready, Romie taking up the back and pointed towards the entrance in case of a pincer attack.

The air was heavy and the light refracted strangely off the metal interior of the hall. Even the glow stones seemed to only cast about 30% of their normal illumination and there was a weird magical weight that made it all the more ominous.

"Creepy," Romie said to nods from the rest of the group.

A door suddenly opened automatically at my approach, surprising all of us and eliciting a shield bash to the air from me. We moved quickly into tight quarters formation, me at the head, morningstar raised to strike quickly.

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Instead of a fight, we found more dead bodies.

It was a room I hadn't seen on my previous brief visit to the facility. We surmised the nine corpses were probably technicians or similar as the decomposed bodies were dressed in long coats the team informed me were standard attire for researchers.

Rather than investigating, we used general sweep and clear tactics, moving into the main room where I'd woken up. Upon finding nothing outside a body and an abandoned laboratory, we relaxed slightly. Deciding to start with the room with the researchers, we conducted a more thorough search.

"Looks like they were killed with some kind of laser or something similar," I said, holding up a jacket as it sloughed off rotting meat to show a very round hole through it but no clear blood stain. The strike was just where someone's heart would be.

After not finding anything of interest on the first four bodies, I decided against disturbing the last five in the name of looting essentially nothing.

We looked through the drawers and cabinets, finding some interesting supplies – mostly medical but a few books and the like which I tossed into my storage bag – then headed to the main room.

"It's creepy how much it's just like that facility," Inara said. "So this really does mean that place was run by Barry too I guess?"

I nodded slowly, sighing. "Yeah, we kind of knew it had to be true but this is all but confirmation. Let's grab what we can and head out. We've spent a fair bit of time here and I'm sure Struva is going to be slightly grumpy if we don't show up on time."

I took a large box from my ring which we filled with papers to put into it – my ring cared more about number of items than size in general.

I'd transfer the files to Tiesa's house when we got back. She and Jasna had been reviewing the documents from the facility that were in plain Verdantese and the pair were working on decoding some of the papers that weren't with the help of one of their friends from Tiesa's time in the military.

"Oh fuck!" Romie called and we all tensed up. They smiled sheepishly, handing me a document. "No, look."

It was in plain Verdantese and mentioned working with Lazar Fabianova to design the perfect body for him. I shrugged. "Who's Lazar Fabianova?"

"Oh! That's where I know that robe from! Hard to tell with so much grossness but yeah. Wait, didn't he disappear like a month and a half ago?" Inara was bouncing from foot to foot. "Oh, oh, oh! Oh shit, this makes sense. One of the papers said something about 'the transfer'. I think they tried to take his soul from this body," she pointed to the decaying mass on the metal slab, "and put it into this one," she said, laying a hand on my shoulder.

"Makes sense Barry would run too if he killed the top advisor to the King… can't have any witnesses, so that explains the bodies… this is big." Pavel was looking around with newfound interest.

"I found something here about a relaxation serum too. Any ideas?" Inara said.

"Opening a spa?" Romie joked to general chuckles.

"Okay, okay, I think we've gotten everything we can from here. But we can't tell anyone about this place. Got it?" I asked, waiting for everyone to nod. "Crap, what lie do we tell our guide? And Struva?"

Isekonsultant Tip to Thriving #39: Sometimes you just have to dictate terms, even with friend, and make it seem like the only logical option; people will often just go with it as you provided the solution. You don't need to force everything if you make things seem like the best and only idea.

As we arrived back, our guide was surprisingly uncurious which was good as we were still working on the perfect lie. We collaborated on it over AAI for the rest of the ride north.

***

"Look at how cute they are!" Inara squealed as she held up the decapitated head of the combination armadillo-hedgehog-like monsters we were fighting in the first rift.

I was picking out a few of the quills from my shirt and tossing them to the ground. While the projectiles weren't too dangerous, we all still had opted for the goggles Struva offered to rent for a small additional fee to delvers.

"That's great babe, now please throw the dripping head into the cart," Pavel pleaded as if he'd had this discussion tens of times before.

"No fun," she replied sadly.

"Can I ask what's up with this weird taxation and revenue share agreement thing they are doing for delves? Isn't just an entrance fee for the rift easier?" I asked.

"Yes and no. The big issue is that when rifts get to be above a certain amount of null, only top of Tier teams – or Tier 2s and above I guess – are capable of handling the concentration. But those teams mostly moved away from the region because there are simply better delves elsewhere right now. So the cities are stuck." Inara was cleaning off her gloves.

"Yeah, I still don't get it," I replied.

Her fiancé stepped in. "The cities have three problems: first, no one that isn't peak of Tier can really delve these rifts without risking damage once they get past a certain point of null concentration. They have to keep them regularly delved to prevent that. It's something the cities are learning quite quickly and is only getting worse. So, if they don't have peak teams to deal with the rifts once they pass a certain point, that means no money coming into their economy from rift rewards and also no money from the entrance fees." Pavel looked like he was about to go on a rant.

Romie cut him off. "And zero entrance fee rifts just get people killed," they deadpanned.

"Ah, basically to get things back to normal, you need top of Tier teams to clear the rifts and drive the null essence down because if they just drop it to no entrance fees, you only get clown shoes teams going in that can't handle the null. Got it," I observed.

After a two minute explanation of why clown shoes means ridiculous and killing two more rolling balls of death, Pavel continued. "So, first is again no one who isn't peak should delve a high null concentration rift. Well, at least without you or the new folks that can handle the null."

I nodded. "Yup, makes sense. I imagine the second problem has to do with actually attracting these peak teams, though that doesn't make a ton of sense to me. It's good essence for their items or spells. And good rift rewards presumably."

Pavel groaned as the corpse he picked up split in two, getting blood and stomach acid all over him. "Gross… but yes, to get a rift back to where normals can use it – like that rift outside Velez where a Tier 1.0 could go and it's fine – you need to do a full clear or three. This one was actually probably safe for a Tier 1.8 and definitely a Tier 1.9 team, peak or not. But most of the good teams that fit the bill left the area. Too much economic uncertainty. So attracting a competent peak of Tier 1 team is hard, zero fees or not. Ope, we have a visitor, pick this up after," he opined as another rolling beast came at us firing spikes.

After we dispatched two more monsters, Steve screaming happily as my morningstar hit the second beast on the head for the fifth time, finally caving the skull enough to end its angry hissing and attempts to bite, I brought us back. "I think I see the problem. You don't get revenue inflows – either direct or indirect – from the rift. To get the rift back to a state where it can generate revenues, you have to attract a good team, but they aren't enticed by just no fees. But why not? Especially if there's no competition?"

"Null hurts," Romie said simply. At my confused look, they added, "Long cooldown."

Our spunkiest team member nodded. "Yeah, we love working with you so we don't have to deal with that crap. It was really confusing how we could carry anyone up the Tier… We could only do maybe one rift that tipped past the limit every six to eight days without it starting to, at best, feel like it was damaging our essence channels, let alone our clients'. More often than that and I heard of some peak Tier 1s – and Tier 2s in the Tier 2 rifts – actually doing permanent damage to their channels. That is not fun my dude," Inara complained.

"Just because Fuzzybutt used 'my dude' doesn't mean you should," Pavel protested. "Terry told that story for perspective, not to change your vocabulary. But yes, if you are trying to earn, you're generally better off with rifts that are less full but you can hit every two to four days or even daily if you aren't the one absorbing the essence. In a zone that is at the peak of the rebirth cycle, the rifts recharge so often that's possible."

The spear wielder put the butt of his weapon on the ground to lean on it. "The potential lotto of fuller rifts just isn't worth dealing with null. Plus the pain with null gets pretty intense if you aren't taking long rests between fights. Makes the rifts way more dangerous due to the distraction factor."

"But then the third… oh, got it." I flung the corpse of the one I'd brained into the cart. "Essentially, the cities are just not getting any money so they pay someone to come in and run the rifts, but there might be a jackpot. They are already suffering from the lack of rift-based money in the economy and something like a skill disc or natural treasure dropping… it makes sense they want a cut. Still a dumb way to approach it in my mind, super short-term thinking, but politicians aren't known for making the best calls."

"Yeah, but I had our numbers guy run everything down and having you on the team means we'll be raking it in!" Inara announced with a little wiggle.

"Who's your numbers guy?" I asked.

Pavel raised his hand with a non-plussed look while I chuckled. [Incoming Message from Pavel Lysenko: It's actually Romie but then explaining anything numbers related to Inara or Vidas is too much hassle so they foist it on me. :)]

"I guess I get it now but I was wondering how those without an AAI could delve. They just go to the rifts with only entrance fees?" I asked to a chorus of nods as we prepared for the final boss.

***

We exited the rift, three qi stones in hand. Overall, it was quite the easy delve. The rift boss was even the rare variant without shooting spines.

My spirit was feeling reasonably full – we had decided to try pushing me towards Tier 1.3 first instead of leveling up Steve to 1.1 so I took in over 80% of the rift's essence. I didn't plan to let my bond fight until he improved in training with Risto and was at least Tier 1.3 himself so there wasn't a rush.

The null essence we did push his way, I tried to get him to allocate most of it into his circlet.

I couldn't tell how well my instructions worked but he did manage to sneak food out of my pocket as we were resting and collecting the bodies from the final fight for the corpse sled. It was only his third or fourth time getting something by me so it was simultaneously encouraging and worrying given his mischievous nature.

Waiting for us at the exit next to our guide for the day was a very angry man, tall and rotund with a very silly top hat and long, brightly colored jacket of green and pink.

"Leave that here and come with us," he demanded, pointing at the corpse cart. "And hand over the reward to be inspected," he spat, holding out his hand.

"You're late, extremely rude. We'll take that out of your pay. The other group is waiting at the next rift. We are paying them by the bell. Chop, chop."

I looked to Pavel and we nodded our heads slightly at each other four times. [Incoming Message from Pavel Lysenko: Rock] as I sent [Paper]. He looked grumpy.

[Incoming Message from Pavel Lysenko: I still don't get how rock beats paper…].

[Loser says what?] [Incoming Message from Pavel Lysenko: What?]. Then I heard him swear slightly under his breath.

Our still second-in-command stepped forward, putting his hand out to shake. The man looked at the still-grimy hand and gave a questioning eyebrow raise. Pavel cleared his throat, lowering the proffered appendage. "Right, nice to meet you. We are The Order of the Ever-Consuming Glider. And you would be?"

Inara had dealt with the Velez Council heavily in arranging our trip to Struva over the following few days so she begged off 'asshole duty' as we were calling dealing with these types. That meant it fell mostly to Pavel but I sometimes stepped up to relieve him.

Just not this time.

"Did you really not do your homework boy? I am Councilor Klimas. That's right, Stavros Klimas. We were to have a full reception with the Council tonight over a feast but as you have been slacking, that seems like it's off the table. Now, onto the horses."

Pavel sent a round of messages and because no one wanted to deal with the guy, we decided to say nothing and hurry to the next rift where I would be entering with two teams, leaving everyone else behind.

We were executing our political maneuver 31: when you are dealing with a pompous ass, if there is nothing to be gained from pushing back, just ignore them and rush through the interaction.

Isekonsultant Tip to Thriving #40: If you have to deal with a jerk, minimize the exposure. If you were going to do what they want anyway, just get it done and don't give them the satisfaction of pushing back and then doing their bidding anyway. But make sure to give them a hard time in other ways when it will hurt. If they think you are their lapdog, that will make it worse in the end.

The entire ride over, we kept our horses about twenty lengths back because if anyone got closer, Councilor Klimas tried to talk at us, usually scolding or bragging about the greatness of his house. [This guy is an utter cliché] I sent to my team and they all chuckled a bit with different versions of agreement.

Luckily, it was only a fifteen minute ride.

At the rift entrance, I decided to take Steve in with me. My reasoning was it was safer in there than near the idiot Councilor. We had one specialized team of four delvers engaging the monsters and a second team of three sent in to only guard me with specialized loadouts for protecting important people as they advanced in Tier.

The rift was also nowhere near as difficult as the rift Velez assigned us to clear where Steve got hurt, even when that Velez rift was low on essence.

It should be a cakewalk and even I could probably clear the rift solo.

Romie set our allocation bracelets – Velez had provided ten for us to use – with Steve getting 30% of the null and the rest going to me. I only received a small portion of the green essence as the rest of the delvers had items or spells to channel essence into and a few were still not at the peak of Tier 1.9.

Romie and I did the math: I would probably get close to hitting Tier 1.3 by our second delve the next day, maybe even at the end of the first since the rifts were slightly high on essence and we were doing full clears.

My delve with the other seven people was possibly the most anticlimactic event of my life. I stayed alert the entire time but the giant tortoises were perfectly countered by the team assigned to fight, never getting within twenty feet (6m) of the group protecting me.

Of the strikeforce team, two had binding or trip spells, one had a taunt skill enhanced by their Innate Capability and heavily enchanted armor, and the final one had an enchanted hammer that seemed to crack the monster's shells in one to two swings. The team also had enough storage bags to not even need a corpse cart so post-fight cleanup was usually seconds at most. Their stamina was also incredible, going from fight to fight with no rest.

I spent my time between the battles I wasn't allowed to go near trying to find anything else unusual with my spiritual sense, discovering a small, magically-enhanced ore vein. We marked it for after clearing the rest of the rift as the team wasn't willing to start digging there and then, risking drawing enemies while they were unfocused.

Upon defeating the massive rift boss, which could use wind and water magic as well as an incredibly devastating charge and stomp combo, they swiped the reward distortion, netting four sizeable pieces of gold.

After handing the gold to me, both groups sent me out the exit as all seven of my companions grabbed pick axes from one of the protection team, heading for the vein.

Councilor Klimas looked incensed. "Did you kill another group? I knew you were bad news!"

"What are you even talking about?" I asked, slightly losing my cool. I was the one who kept almost dying. Maybe not the best comeback… "Literally no one has died in a rift with me. You asked if we did our homework, did you? And no, there was an ore vein that felt magical they went back for. I will be taking my cut of that by the way."

Pavel sent [Scissors] through AAI to me, eliciting a chuckle.

Klimas hemmed and hawed about paying the teams extra, again threatening to take it from our pay and snatching the gold away. Finally, he indicated the horses again so we rode to our last rift before our arrival in Struva. We'd be delving the city-run Tier 1 rifts over the following two days as well.

There were six delves planned for the next day, with at least two delves being with The Order of the Ever-Consuming Glider, possibly three if their stamina held. Struva was lending us rechargeable mana stones between delves for the rest of the group to always be topped up. Day three, the city hoped for us to do four delves but I guessed we'd do three before heading back.

As we arrived at the rift, I could tell something was wrong immediately. I could feel the null emanating from the purple-white distortion half a mile (800m) away. But the rift total essence level itself was barely above the two we'd done that day; the only thing elevated was the null concentration.

"So… this is weird…" I said, trying to gauge everyone's reaction. "Do we have any data on other delves like this? Might be safe but not going to risk it without more information." I turned to the Councilor. "I'm contacting our city's leading expert on this but I need you to contact Councilors in every other city and get the same information."

After arguing with him for five minutes as to why we would not charge in, I finally got a reply from our eccentric researcher. [Incoming Message from Ratmir Prodanov: Safe but only you. Lucky duckies. Null not make rifts harder, only essence does. Null hard on most people. Lucky duckies. Get readings! Take notes!]

I chuckled at his weird text language before reviewing the forwarded accounts of nine different teams that took on a rift with higher-than-normal null concentration.

Councilor Klimas finally got back a few replies, which he forwarded, presumably forgetting to take off the nasty things he said about our team in his outgoing messages; and he almost certainly forgot to take off the even meaner replies about him, his progeny, his skill in bed, and a host of other supposed weaknesses in addition to the delve reports.

This is not a well-liked man… I wonder why.

I forwarded everything to the team and we discussed for another 30 minutes but it all came back to the same conclusion: it wouldn't be any more dangerous if the essence level wasn't too high.

And it wasn't.

We had two essence measuring devices ourselves and a researcher from Struva Ratmir called 'competent' showed up to measure, coming to the same conclusion. Every single report said the rifts with higher null essence concentration were more painful to absorb – which wasn't a concern for us – but the monsters were actually slightly weaker and less intelligent.

I debated leaving Steve outside with Klimas. But, my teammates showed me the error in my thoughts.

Pavel performed a full-force leaping strike against Steve's cage as it lay on the ground, destroying one of his cheaper backup spears. I realized the safest place for Steve was probably in his Tier 3 viewing box and I didn't trust the Councilor to watch him either. If worse came to worst, I could also dump Steve's cage out of the rift.

Our team voted to the dismay and diatribe of the Councilor. I said to skip the rift and hit it with a double combined team the next day but the other three voted we clear the rift. Deciding I should trust the judgment of the team, we geared up and entered the swirling vortex in reality.

Despite voting no, I was confident heading in.

We've got this.

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