Mila
The second secret room contained a grand total of 47 skill orbs, but only 9 were for F ranks, most of the rest for G ranks instead, and there was only one Heroic grade skill among the 47, a D rank farming skill. Of the nine F rank skills, two were copies of the Legendary grade Lord skill and three were farming skills, likely stolen from the same source as the Heroic grade D rank skill. And that left only four skills which the three of them could learn.
First was Danger Sense, likely stolen from the royal family of the Amoranth Kingdom, making the continued existence of Tomin Amoranth pointless, as Aalam just put it in the Left Hand of the Runescribe as soon as he saw it. Next there was an offensive skill called Breath of the Frost Wolf, which seemed to be designed for ice mages yet Aalam, the only one who could learn the skill, completely ignored it. Then, finally, the last two skills were both of the stealth category.
The first was what Nana Xara called ‘the standard of stealth skills’, the Legendary grade version of the skill Stealth. While the name was boring, it made one hard to notice with detection skills, provided camouflage effects against sight, and blocked most sounds and smells. The second skill, however, was the skill Mila and Nana Xara had decided was Mila’s ideal choice for her final skill slot. Shadow Stride was basically Stealth mixed with an Epic grade movement skill, providing all the effects of Stealth only when moving.
The normal Stealth skill provided better effects when still, but Mila was specialized in disguises. For stealth, she mostly wanted to be able to move from one disguise to another without being noticed and she didn’t have much use for stealth for anything but that and running away.
The final nail in the coffin was that Shadow Stride with the stealth functions disabled was basically the Epic grade version of the standard martial category movement skill Flash Steps. This, along with the effects of her second class, would allow her to more easily fake having other classes, and that was far more useful to Mila than having better overall stealth on its own, not to mention her build was missing a movement skill.
The room also contained several information orbs with high grade cultivation techniques, but they were nowhere near the quality of those in Nana Xara’s possession, and the same was true for all the other information orbs containing techniques as well. The only ones truly useful for their group were the ones containing details on forces and individuals in the Palazin Galaxy Cluster and other nearby territories.
“There doesn’t look to be a good skill for you, Isaiah.” Mila patted the large man on the back. “But Aalam and I are now pretty much done with our skills and we have a quest we can complete to get two Legendary grade skills, so we can use one of those on you.”
Isaiah’s eyes grew slightly wide and Mila remembered the best present he’d ever received was a Rare grade G rank spear, making her a little sad. “Thank you.”
“No problem.” Aalam spoke up as they left the room, seemingly not aware how much getting such an expensive present meant to Isaiah. “It’s not like we were going to use the skill for anything other than money, anyway.”
Among the skill orbs up to Epic grade in the main part of the warehouse, they’d found the six necessary skills to merge Mana Construction (F-Legendary) and Qi Construction (F-Legendary). Along with the three skills Mila had obtained for him to merge Psychic Construction (F-Legendary), he had all the required skills to eventually merge the final skill for his main class, Triforce Construction (F-Heroic), and he thought it was better to start with the lower grade skills and work his way up if he wanted to forge himself into a true crafter, so there was no need to speed up the process by getting the Legendary grade skills directly.
“Actually,” Nana Xara sent, “Could I have the other skill for Diana? There is a Legendary grade skill called Spirit Enhancement which would be ideal for her build.”
Mila told Aalam about Nana Xara’s request and Aalam said, “Why even ask? If anything is better used by Diana, even if it could be useful to us, just take it.”
“Um, who’s Diana?”
Mila looked at Aalam, but Aalam was looking to her, preferring her to explain, so she did. “Aalam’s big sister. She was four years older than him and they had a really close relationship. She’s the other apprentice of Nana Xara and is still alive on our home planet.”
“Got it.” Isaiah nodded, but he seemed to have another question he wanted to ask, only he wasn’t comfortable asking it for some reason.
“There are no bad questions, Isaiah,” Mila prompted. “Feel free to ask anything.”
“Alright.” Isaiah took a deep breath. ”Is it not a bit insulting to call an A rank by such an informal name?”
“Oh, completely.” Mila smiled. “But she’s technically our ancestor and she’s dead, so there isn’t much she could do about it.”
Mila saw the look of horror on Isaiah’s face and decided to stop playing around. “Also, it’s what she asked to be called, well mostly.”
“Mostly?” Isaiah’s eyes were wide and Mila got the impression A ranks were held in very high esteem in the Gale Clan, and likely throughout the universe.
“Well, the word for grandmother in Aalam’s native tongue sounds a lot like the word ‘Supreme Holy Leader’ in Universal Standard and Nana Xara was trying to make a joke by getting me to call her that, but I have the Omniglot Reader racial ability so it failed, thus I started calling her Nana Xara instead.” Mila paused for a second. “She knew I had that racial ability, so her goal was probably to get me to call her something informal in the first place.”
“What A rank is so kind?” Isaiah was looking at Mila with an expression of wonder. “Was Nana Xara the Hearthmother? The Holy Maiden?”
“The Yin Yang Sage?” Mila watched Isaiah’s eyes grow wider as she said the words, his expression showing utmost terror, and Mila began to think it would probably be best in the future to never expose Nana Xara’s title.
“You’re both descendants of the Mistress of Plagues?”
“I haven’t heard that title before.” Mila tried to keep her face expressionless, but Aalam looked angry. “What do you know about the Yin Yang Sage?”
“Can she hear everything I say?” Isaiah looked around a couple times before he seemed to remember Mila had explained how her master shared her senses and had no other way to see the world.
“Not if I don’t want her to.”
“Please don’t cut me off, Mila,” Nana Xara sent, sounding excited. “I want to hear about my legacy.”
“But she rather wants to know how she’s remembered.” Mila decided keeping Nana Xara around to hear what Isaiah had to say was probably better for everyone, as it wasn’t like any information Isaiah had on an A rank would be reliable, especially one dead for 2,000 years before he was born.
“Um, okay.” Isaiah took a few seconds to collect himself. “I don’t actually know much about the Yin Yang Sage when I think about it, just rumors I guess. The Yin Yang Sage was one of those people parents use to scare children.
“Don’t eat too many sweets, or the soul of the Yin Yang Sage will poison you. Don’t make enemies for the clan, or the clan might be destroyed by a black and white plague. Don’t wake mommy up too early or the Yin Yang Sage might rise from the grave and eat you.”
Isaiah paused. “Thinking about it, the Yin Yang Sage was supposed to be a standard human, so that last one doesn’t even make sense.
“The only real facts I can confirm are two. First, she used magical plagues as one of her main weapons—but if I think about the stories they were probably more controlled diseases than plagues, as most of the stories involving them don’t have any innocent bystanders die. Second, she had a lot of enemies, responsible for killing a lot of beings known as heroes.”
“My husband wasn’t necessarily a good person. And, after he was killed, I might have gone a tad homicidal for a bit.” Nana Xara sounded slightly ashamed of herself, which was rare.
“Mila,” Aalam asked, voice, aura, and expression showing he didn’t quite know how to feel about the question he was asking, “was Nana Xara responsible for the apocalypses on Earth?”
“I wasn’t,” Nana Xara said before Mila could ask, and Mila repeated her master’s words to Aalam. “But I brought quite a few humans to Earth over the thousands of years before my death, most of whom were educated. Quite a few families on Earth knew about the integration long before it started and some of them were responsible for some of your apocalypse forces, the plagues for certain.”
Aalam nodded upon hearing that, seemingly content with the answer. He still had another question, though. “But she wanted the apocalypse style integration to happen?”
“Of course she did.” Mila didn’t even wait for Nana Xara to answer. “A normal integration wouldn’t have provided the same benefits to her apprentices, or a good environment for finding candidates. I’m not, however, certain having an apocalypse style integration is a bad thing. We at least would have been dead before the integration actually happened in the case of a standard integration, as it wouldn’t have started for a hundred years, and we probably wouldn’t have existed at all if she hadn’t seeded the planet the way she did.
“We can, however, blame her for our trauma. That’s a very reasonable thing to do and she should pay up for it.”
“Hey, I give plenty of good advice and I already gave almost all my knowledge on everything build related to Aalam?” Nana Xara faked being offended, but Mila caught something in her words and decided to go on the attack.
“Almost everything? What did you hold back?”
“Pretty much everything involving mass sacrifice and necromancy, along with anything which involved twisting one’s soul for power.” Nana Xara sounded a bit less jovial than normal, as if she was taking what they were saying seriously.
Then she asked a different question. “What are you thinking, Mila?”
“Nothing different than I have the entire time I’ve known you. It’s not like you hid the fact you deliberately seeded Earth with talents from the organizations you destroyed, at least not from me, and I haven’t been able to contradict anything you’ve said.
“From what I’ve been able to tell, you also would have been able to extend your life through vile means had you wanted to, but you didn’t, so I think you are what you present yourself as, a sad old woman taking one last hail marry and trying to have as much fun as possible while doing so.
“It doesn’t mean I won’t punch you in the face if I ever do manage to revive you, though.”
Nana Xara started laughing. “Fair enough.”
To Aalam and Isaiah Mila then said, “Just think of Nana Xara as an ancestor we can turn to for advice at any time, but one who is so bored she’ll answer anything.
“For example, Isaiah, I asked her what skill she thought would be best for you and she thinks the Legendary grade Knight skill would open up a really powerful class line, so, when we finish the quest, that’s what I’m thinking of getting for you.
“Does that sound good?”
“Advice from an A rank?” Isaiah’s eyes grew wide again, looking like Aalam after hearing about a new Marvel movie coming out. “Sure, the Knight skill sounds great.”
“But the classes requiring the Knight skill with—” Aalam started, looking confused, but then he seemed to realize something and, without explaining, he grabbed Isaiah by the wrist and started running out of the room. “Come on Mila. We have to go check those final resources. You were so right to not just kill Isaiah.”
“Wait? Kill me? What?” Isaiah wasn’t as strong as Aalam, so he got pulled along, obviously confused, and Mila ran after them, a smile on her face.
Please only read at https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/48991/game-of-gods-tales-of-the-celibate-incubus and https://www.scribblehub.com/series/461729/game-of-gods-tales-of-the-celibate-incubus/. It is free and anywhere else this story has been stolen.
Mila
The second secret room contained a grand total of 47 skill orbs, but only 9 were for F ranks, most of the rest for G ranks instead, and there was only one Heroic grade skill among the 47, a D rank farming skill. Of the nine F rank skills, two were copies of the Legendary grade Lord skill and three were farming skills, likely stolen from the same source as the Heroic grade D rank skill. And that left only four skills which the three of them could learn.
First was Danger Sense, likely stolen from the royal family of the Amoranth Kingdom, making the continued existence of Tomin Amoranth pointless, as Aalam just put it in the Left Hand of the Runescribe as soon as he saw it. Next there was an offensive skill called Breath of the Frost Wolf, which seemed to be designed for ice mages yet Aalam, the only one who could learn the skill, completely ignored it. Then, finally, the last two skills were both of the stealth category.
The first was what Nana Xara called ‘the standard of stealth skills’, the Legendary grade version of the skill Stealth. While the name was boring, it made one hard to notice with detection skills, provided camouflage effects against sight, and blocked most sounds and smells. The second skill, however, was the skill Mila and Nana Xara had decided was Mila’s ideal choice for her final skill slot. Shadow Stride was basically Stealth mixed with an Epic grade movement skill, providing all the effects of Stealth only when moving.
The normal Stealth skill provided better effects when still, but Mila was specialized in disguises. For stealth, she mostly wanted to be able to move from one disguise to another without being noticed and she didn’t have much use for stealth for anything but that and running away.
The final nail in the coffin was that Shadow Stride with the stealth functions disabled was basically the Epic grade version of the standard martial category movement skill Flash Steps. This, along with the effects of her second class, would allow her to more easily fake having other classes, and that was far more useful to Mila than having better overall stealth on its own, not to mention her build was missing a movement skill.
The room also contained several information orbs with high grade cultivation techniques, but they were nowhere near the quality of those in Nana Xara’s possession, and the same was true for all the other information orbs containing techniques as well. The only ones truly useful for their group were the ones containing details on forces and individuals in the Palazin Galaxy Cluster and other nearby territories.
“There doesn’t look to be a good skill for you, Isaiah.” Mila patted the large man on the back. “But Aalam and I are now pretty much done with our skills and we have a quest we can complete to get two Legendary grade skills, so we can use one of those on you.”
Isaiah’s eyes grew slightly wide and Mila remembered the best present he’d ever received was a Rare grade G rank spear, making her a little sad. “Thank you.”
“No problem.” Aalam spoke up as they left the room, seemingly not aware how much getting such an expensive present meant to Isaiah. “It’s not like we were going to use the skill for anything other than money, anyway.”
Among the skill orbs up to Epic grade in the main part of the warehouse, they’d found the six necessary skills to merge Mana Construction (F-Legendary) and Qi Construction (F-Legendary). Along with the three skills Mila had obtained for him to merge Psychic Construction (F-Legendary), he had all the required skills to eventually merge the final skill for his main class, Triforce Construction (F-Heroic), and he thought it was better to start with the lower grade skills and work his way up if he wanted to forge himself into a true crafter, so there was no need to speed up the process by getting the Legendary grade skills directly.
“Actually,” Nana Xara sent, “Could I have the other skill for Diana? There is a Legendary grade skill called Spirit Enhancement which would be ideal for her build.”
Mila told Aalam about Nana Xara’s request and Aalam said, “Why even ask? If anything is better used by Diana, even if it could be useful to us, just take it.”
“Um, who’s Diana?”
Mila looked at Aalam, but Aalam was looking to her, preferring her to explain, so she did. “Aalam’s big sister. She was four years older than him and they had a really close relationship. She’s the other apprentice of Nana Xara and is still alive on our home planet.”
“Got it.” Isaiah nodded, but he seemed to have another question he wanted to ask, only he wasn’t comfortable asking it for some reason.
“There are no bad questions, Isaiah,” Mila prompted. “Feel free to ask anything.”
“Alright.” Isaiah took a deep breath. ”Is it not a bit insulting to call an A rank by such an informal name?”
“Oh, completely.” Mila smiled. “But she’s technically our ancestor and she’s dead, so there isn’t much she could do about it.”
Mila saw the look of horror on Isaiah’s face and decided to stop playing around. “Also, it’s what she asked to be called, well mostly.”
“Mostly?” Isaiah’s eyes were wide and Mila got the impression A ranks were held in very high esteem in the Gale Clan, and likely throughout the universe.
“Well, the word for grandmother in Aalam’s native tongue sounds a lot like the word ‘Supreme Holy Leader’ in Universal Standard and Nana Xara was trying to make a joke by getting me to call her that, but I have the Omniglot Reader racial ability so it failed, thus I started calling her Nana Xara instead.” Mila paused for a second. “She knew I had that racial ability, so her goal was probably to get me to call her something informal in the first place.”
“What A rank is so kind?” Isaiah was looking at Mila with an expression of wonder. “Was Nana Xara the Hearthmother? The Holy Maiden?”
“The Yin Yang Sage?” Mila watched Isaiah’s eyes grow wider as she said the words, his expression showing utmost terror, and Mila began to think it would probably be best in the future to never expose Nana Xara’s title.
“You’re both descendants of the Mistress of Plagues?”
“I haven’t heard that title before.” Mila tried to keep her face expressionless, but Aalam looked angry. “What do you know about the Yin Yang Sage?”
“Can she hear everything I say?” Isaiah looked around a couple times before he seemed to remember Mila had explained how her master shared her senses and had no other way to see the world.
“Not if I don’t want her to.”
“Please don’t cut me off, Mila,” Nana Xara sent, sounding excited. “I want to hear about my legacy.”
“But she rather wants to know how she’s remembered.” Mila decided keeping Nana Xara around to hear what Isaiah had to say was probably better for everyone, as it wasn’t like any information Isaiah had on an A rank would be reliable, especially one dead for 2,000 years before he was born.
“Um, okay.” Isaiah took a few seconds to collect himself. “I don’t actually know much about the Yin Yang Sage when I think about it, just rumors I guess. The Yin Yang Sage was one of those people parents use to scare children.
“Don’t eat too many sweets, or the soul of the Yin Yang Sage will poison you. Don’t make enemies for the clan, or the clan might be destroyed by a black and white plague. Don’t wake mommy up too early or the Yin Yang Sage might rise from the grave and eat you.”
Isaiah paused. “Thinking about it, the Yin Yang Sage was supposed to be a standard human, so that last one doesn’t even make sense.
“The only real facts I can confirm are two. First, she used magical plagues as one of her main weapons—but if I think about the stories they were probably more controlled diseases than plagues, as most of the stories involving them don’t have any innocent bystanders die. Second, she had a lot of enemies, responsible for killing a lot of beings known as heroes.”
“My husband wasn’t necessarily a good person. And, after he was killed, I might have gone a tad homicidal for a bit.” Nana Xara sounded slightly ashamed of herself, which was rare.
“Mila,” Aalam asked, voice, aura, and expression showing he didn’t quite know how to feel about the question he was asking, “was Nana Xara responsible for the apocalypses on Earth?”
“I wasn’t,” Nana Xara said before Mila could ask, and Mila repeated her master’s words to Aalam. “But I brought quite a few humans to Earth over the thousands of years before my death, most of whom were educated. Quite a few families on Earth knew about the integration long before it started and some of them were responsible for some of your apocalypse forces, the plagues for certain.”
Aalam nodded upon hearing that, seemingly content with the answer. He still had another question, though. “But she wanted the apocalypse style integration to happen?”
“Of course she did.” Mila didn’t even wait for Nana Xara to answer. “A normal integration wouldn’t have provided the same benefits to her apprentices, or a good environment for finding candidates. I’m not, however, certain having an apocalypse style integration is a bad thing. We at least would have been dead before the integration actually happened in the case of a standard integration, as it wouldn’t have started for a hundred years, and we probably wouldn’t have existed at all if she hadn’t seeded the planet the way she did.
“We can, however, blame her for our trauma. That’s a very reasonable thing to do and she should pay up for it.”
“Hey, I give plenty of good advice and I already gave almost all my knowledge on everything build related to Aalam?” Nana Xara faked being offended, but Mila caught something in her words and decided to go on the attack.
“Almost everything? What did you hold back?”
“Pretty much everything involving mass sacrifice and necromancy, along with anything which involved twisting one’s soul for power.” Nana Xara sounded a bit less jovial than normal, as if she was taking what they were saying seriously.
Then she asked a different question. “What are you thinking, Mila?”
“Nothing different than I have the entire time I’ve known you. It’s not like you hid the fact you deliberately seeded Earth with talents from the organizations you destroyed, at least not from me, and I haven’t been able to contradict anything you’ve said.
“From what I’ve been able to tell, you also would have been able to extend your life through vile means had you wanted to, but you didn’t, so I think you are what you present yourself as, a sad old woman taking one last hail marry and trying to have as much fun as possible while doing so.
“It doesn’t mean I won’t punch you in the face if I ever do manage to revive you, though.”
Nana Xara started laughing. “Fair enough.”
To Aalam and Isaiah Mila then said, “Just think of Nana Xara as an ancestor we can turn to for advice at any time, but one who is so bored she’ll answer anything.
“For example, Isaiah, I asked her what skill she thought would be best for you and she thinks the Legendary grade Knight skill would open up a really powerful class line, so, when we finish the quest, that’s what I’m thinking of getting for you.
“Does that sound good?”
“Advice from an A rank?” Isaiah’s eyes grew wide again, looking like Aalam after hearing about a new Marvel movie coming out. “Sure, the Knight skill sounds great.”
“But the classes requiring the Knight skill with—” Aalam started, looking confused, but then he seemed to realize something and, without explaining, he grabbed Isaiah by the wrist and started running out of the room. “Come on Mila. We have to go check those final resources. You were so right to not just kill Isaiah.”
“Wait? Kill me? What?” Isaiah wasn’t as strong as Aalam, so he got pulled along, obviously confused, and Mila ran after them, a smile on her face.
Please only read at https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/48991/game-of-gods-tales-of-the-celibate-incubus and https://www.scribblehub.com/series/461729/game-of-gods-tales-of-the-celibate-incubus/. It is free and anywhere else this story has been stolen.
