It was another ten minutes before Diane entered the room, her cheeks flushed slightly and shoulders trembling. When she made eye contact with me, she quickly looked down. "Thanks…" She muttered under her breath, and I just blinked.

"What'd I do?" I asked in confusion, not thinking that I had really made a decision worthy of such a treatment.

Diane, however, shook his head. "He showed me a recording of your conversation, and what you said." My eyes widened slightly, and I gave a small nod. It looked like she was touched about the things I said there at the end.

"Did you accept the sponsorship deal?" I asked, and she confirmed it.

"Yeah. He said that it won't be ready until the next major patch in June. We've got a little over a month left before then, so it's not something to worry about. Until then, the system will start collecting clips of our activities to use once the system is live. But… are you sure about this? I know you made your abilities more known with those other players, but this will really put you out there. Not only will players know what you can do, they'll even have ways of tracking your movements."

I nodded my head firmly. "My reasoning hasn't changed. Besides, this will be a good way for me to find more skills that will benefit me in the later levels. Otherwise, I'm not sure how I'd manage to keep up once my current skills reached their limits."

Seeing her looking down again, I reached over and pat her head. "Let's go take care of the dungeon again, yeah?" I offered with a smile. She looked back up at me, hesitated, and then nodded her head in agreement.

Once again, we raided the Sea Dragon Palace, and this time I managed to finally evolve my Ki Shadow back into Ki Clone. After we finished the raid, this clone then joined the other two against Diane in the training, considerably increasing the difficulty for her. Although the new clone hadn't learned the fighting styles that the first two had, it had greater physical abilities.

With this newest clone added in, Diane was forced to go all out, even activating her own Dragon Form. I could see her skill levels improving by the day, her movements becoming more fluid and decisive.

On the day after the GM appeared, while we were doing our usual training, Diane lifted a hand to pause the training after destroying the three clones. "Hold it, Drake! Living Shade's ready!"

As soon as she said that, I stopped what I was doing and looked up, my own body still in a draconic state to steadily gain experience. "Did you get the fusion?" I asked, to which Diane nodded her head, a clearly pleased smile on her face. "Well? Go on, let's see if it matches what you were hoping for."

Diane paused, looking at the window in front of her, before decisively pressing the button to fuse her skills. A moment later, a sound like a dragon's cry emerged from Diane's body, which I felt resonate with my own draconic nature. Shadows rose up from beneath her, wrapping around Diane's body to form soft, smooth scales.

Her neck extended, her face shifting in a draconic figure with glowing red eyes as wings sprouted from behind her. In many ways, she looked like just a more powerful version of her former Dragon Form, but with an aura of darkness covering her. "Shadow Dragon Embodiment." She said, looking at her new claws. She seemed incredibly excited about something.

Lifting a hand, she generated a dozen spears of shadows in the air above her, launching them towards a large rock in the distance. My eyes widened as she immediately launched another volley. "No mana?" I asked, to which she nodded her head.

"While in this form, shadow-attribute skills cost no mana, though there's a limit to their power. However, using a skill with an attribute aside from shadow has ten times the burden. That must be the benefit of forcing the skill into a specialized direction, as opposed to how you can choose any element when you take on your draconic form."

I gave a small nod at that. "Does that mean that you can trade your shadow skills like I train now?" I asked, and her eyes widened, her head snapping to look at me. With a chuckle, I nodded my head again. "Go on. We can cancel the clone training for now."

Diane clenched her clawed fists in determination, quickly starting to practice her various shadow-themed skills while I watched in thought. It looks like dragon embodiment is meant to be a path to allow players to rapidly strengthen themselves in a single chosen direction. Any normal player that received this skill would likely give up on any of their skills that didn't include the shadow attribute, and fight primarily in this new form.

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Of course, I didn't have to worry about that with Diane. Although shadow skills made up a significant portion of her arsenal, she wasn't the type that would completely break her theme for that. She was a true roleplayer, and only used this as a way to further the skills she would properly use in battle. As for her Chosen, I was sure that she was feeling a lot more conflicted, since this was the perfect skill for her as a shadow mage, despite not being a fan of the draconic form.

Diane's training continued for the next few hours, until she abruptly stopped, staring at a message in front of herself. "I'll be back in a little while, Drake!" She said, shifting back to her halfling form and running towards the town. "Hammerhead just sent me my new gear!"

I blinked at that, only just realizing that it had been a full week since the Daggerloft raid. Diane's equipment was finally being upgraded. With that thought in mind, I decided to wait for her. It would be good for her to have gear more capable of representing her level.

Half an hour later, Diane returned, her outfit obviously improved. It was still a black, ninja-style outfit, but the sleeves were longer, and her cloak was tattered. I could barely see her gloved hands poking out of the thick sleeves. "What do you think?" She asked, stepping up towards me and showing it off. "I went ahead and enchanted some of the items before coming over."

"On my robe, I enchanted Ghost-X twice, once to passively reduce my presence and the other to increase the effectiveness of stealth skills. My gloves were enchanted with the new Shadow Dragon Manifestation to reduce the cost of shadow skills. I'm saving other slots for later, but there's one that I'd like you to take care of."

I arched a brow in confusion, and she removed the thigh pouch she had strapped to her leg, handing it over to me. "Can you enchant this with your Shadow Arsenal-X skill, so that it always has five throwing daggers in it?"

"That will burn your mana whenever you throw one that it has to replace, but throwing daggers are small enough that it shouldn't be a problem. Do you have one for me to use as a model?" I asked, and Diane nodded her head.

"Hammerhead did some good work this time." She said, pulling a straight, black knife from her inventory. "He made this with some of the dragon claws I sent him last Thursday, as well as a pair of daggers for melee combat."

I accepted the throwing dagger, studying it as I focused on my Shadow Arsenal-X skill. I wanted to make sure that I created something that she would be comfortable using. Besides, I wasn't personally familiar enough with throwing weapons to get the balance and the weight right without actively examining a model.

Only once I felt the enchantment take root did I hand the pouch back to Diane, allowing her to strap it to her thigh again. "If that can be enchanted separately, is that not considered a part of your pants?" I asked in confusion. "If it's not, and you are just wearing it manually like that, it's guaranteed to drop if you die, like my backpack."

Diane shook her head. "It's a manual equip, like you said. Hammerhead got lucky this time, and made a five-slot bag with an enchantment slot. Originally, he designed it just to be decorative and hold various throwing weapons, but since it has the slot, I wanted to use it. I'll still have the normal inventory space from it anyways."

I nodded, watching her move over to the side, once more starting her training. Though, this time she was also training to move properly in her new attire, her tattered cloak fluttering with ever movement. Whenever she activated her Ghost-X, I would completely lose sight of her for a moment, showcasing both the enchantment and her innate ability with the skill.

Finally, the next day came, and we did one last raid of the Sea Dragon Palace. This was the last raid because we heard from Slithers on the way over that they were ready to set off for Evergreen, so we were doing one last run before we left. This time, the two Dragon King Pearls that dropped both went to Diane, since my own skill was receiving less and less benefit from them now.

Still, I had managed to get it all the way to level thirty with these pearls, so I wasn't going to complain now. For our last battle, we decided not to slowly kill the dragon king with the same necrotic cloud strategy that we had been using to safely defeat him. Instead, we both used our dragon forms and engaged in proper combat.

Of course, we wouldn't have made this choice if he had three or four queens backing him up like the first time we fought him, but still. Although the battle ended more quickly, it was also more dangerous for us. When he unleashed his beam breath, I had to hastily dodge, the threat of death constantly looming.

Either way, we managed to defeat him in the end, earning our rewards. Once we were out of the dungeon, we met up with Slithers, the dwarven captain. "You two ready to go?" He asked with a wide grin when he saw us approaching.

"Yeah." I nodded. "Are you sure you don't need us to pay for the ride?" When I asked that, Slithers let out a loud laugh.

"Oh, you'll be paying in a different sense, don't worry. Since the two of you can clear a rampaging dungeon like the Sea Dragon's Palace, we're taking you on as security for this trip. If we run into any monsters, it'll be up to you two to help. And don't worry, we've got a respawn point on the ship if anything happens. You won't be respawning all the way back here if the worst happens."

Well, that was somewhat reassuring, at least. "We'll do our best, then." I answered honestly, Diane nodding her head next to me. We had already retrieved my backpack from the bank, so we were ready to set off for the land of elves, Evergreen.

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