“Move, move, move! Come on!” Jenna urged the Beli as they marched through the dimensional gate. Pob was keeping it open, thanks in part to the massive increase in magical power Jenna was infusing into him. This was the third group they had transported this week.

  So far, they had moved more than 90 Beli into Babylon, where they were set to be the spearhead of the Belonian resistance.

  To keep Madison safe from scavenger attacks, they developed a routine. A dimensional beacon had been placed in the ruins of the Moon Palace, an abandoned dungeon strategically positioned between Babylon and Valdar.

  From there, they walked into the cellar and used a second beacon to reach the security room in the Madison Mall, where the entry rift lay.

  The room’s door and windows had been sealed with concrete; the only way to reach it was through the beacon, a feat only Jenna could achieve, and only if Pob or Bob helped her do it.

  The entire setup was an elaborate ruse, designed to mislead everyone into believing the entrance to the Secret Mountain lay in the Moon Palace.

  The plan was Alarel’s idea: “Right now, we are the only significant military power in the region. No one is going to mess with us. However, if we drop a major asset like an alchemical dungeon in a nearly destroyed city, like Madison, some warlord will invade it and claim it for himself within a month. The best way to hide a treasure is not to reveal its existence.”

  They intended to use the dungeon as a training ground for the Beli. Sooner or later, the truth would come out, but even if the dungeon were discovered, only a select few would know its true location.

  Activation Day had occurred nearly three months ago, and the world had changed in response. Ninety percent of humanity had been exterminated, but new communities were beginning to form. Some of these communities followed Babylon’s example, while others included a mix of pirates, scavengers, and raiders.

  Avatars in the thirty-level bracket were becoming increasingly common, and as humanity’s power grew, evil or desperate individuals started to replace dungeon spawn as the most significant threats. The Secret Mountain was a treasure, and in the new world, treasures needed protection.

  Bounty had been a lost art for centuries, since Discovery’s ascension locked the Belona system and restricted the arrival of new cards.

  They needed Players. They could not commit Avatars or Amazons to the Belona invasion, because Babylon would sooner or later be attacked by the Postulants born of that war.

  They were playing a dangerous game, and time was not on their side. Jenna had analyzed the enemy’s moves and sensed a growing urgency. The enemy's whole strategy hinged on a time limit.

  They were frantically gathering as many spirit cores as possible to level the Postulants who could enter the final phase of the fight. Reports from the Beli recruits indicated that the most formidable fighters in each faction were rapidly increasing their levels while their rank-and-file soldiers experienced no extra evolutions.

  For the Imperials, it was a race against time—three opposed factions vying for the position of the Omega.

  If Jenna had not managed to turn them against each other with her strategy, they would have conquered all of Belona’s dungeons by now. That massive source of spirit cores would have pushed the war into its next phase.

  As it stood, they had yet to acquire more dungeons beyond the nineteen they had already conquered. Each faction was too busy defending what they had from the other two to pursue new conquests, as that strategy would stretch their resources too thin.

  They entered the sealed security office inside Madison’s Mall. From there, they passed through the rift hanging in mid-air and arrived at the Secret Mountain, where Grandmaster Billy and the Six Alchemical Sages welcomed them.

  "Hmm, hi, honey," said Billy somewhat nervously. He was still in his handsome young Xianxia sect prodigy form. He had slightly managed to overcome his equine tendencies thanks to the alchemical procedures he had undergone in the laboratory. However, Jenna had caught him grazing on grass once, when he thought no one could see him.

  He was flanked on the right by the Wise Sages of Form, three bosses who appeared as elderly men. They were the Sage of Pills, the Sage of Potions, and the Sage of Incense.

  On his left stood the Great Mistresses of Function: the Mistress of Competencies, the Mistress of Stats, and the Mistress of Experience. Together, they represented the pinnacle of alchemical knowledge.

  Sandy and a couple of Alchemists from Babylon accompanied Jenna and Pob, who led the Beli group. They were eager to train and fight for their country. They had all been recruited from the ranks of the poor and dispossessed. Notably, Pob was the only Player among them.

  Billy introduced them to the Alchemical Sages and their students.

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  “These are the friends I mentioned,” he said. “They will share lodgings with our students and contribute to the welfare of the sect. However, they will not be training in Alchemy. Instead, they will learn the ways of card magic from Master Pob,” he explained, gesturing toward the Beli.

  “Our three friends from Babylon,” he indicated Sandy and the other two alchemists, “will be training in Alchemy with us.”

  “The rest of us,” he continued, referring to the Losers, “will procure ingredients for our sect, among other things.” He deliberately omitted that these ‘other things’ included robbing the sect blind of all the powerful alchemical ingredients it had created using the Essence obtained from the Mall. There was a war to win, and Alchemy would be their primary weapon.

  The Beli were distributed among the Six Houses of Alchemy, the minor headquarters located along the mountain, each led by one of the six Sages.

  Sandy and the Alchemists went to the top of the mountain to receive tutelage from Grandmaster Billy himself.

  That left Jenna and Bob to explore the sect.

  They first visited the nearest of the Six Houses, the residence of the Sage of Potions. The building was simple and monastic in design, featuring one wing for living quarters, another for a laboratory, and a final wing that served as a shop for trading powerful ingredients and potions.

  The Sage himself was a middle-aged man with a ponytail and a no-nonsense attitude, overseeing the shop with an air of authority.

  On the left wing, hundreds of strange herbs and roots were on display. The right wing housed bottles of already crafted potions, each with exotic-sounding names, most of which did not indicate their effects.

  Everything was for sale, and each item bore a price tag.

  One potion, named Heroic Charge of the Fiery Tiger, which could either be a combat enhancement potion or an aphrodisiac, resembled a fizzling liquid that changed colors when viewed and had a price tag marked with the number 1860.

  Jenna inquired about the potion. “What does that number mean?”

  The Sage replied, “It indicates the number of Contribution Points it costs, of course.”

  “Of course, Contribution Points had to come into play at some point,” Bob muttered, being overwhelmed by the Xianxia-ness of the whole situation.

  “How does one get those points?” Jenna asked.

  “There are numerous ways to obtain them. Since you are adventurers, you could try to gather powerful ingredients from around the mountain. Monsters guard them. The more powerful the ingredient, the harder it is to obtain.”

  “You could also work for the sect. Menial jobs, such as cleaning, sweeping, or cooking, grant one contribution point for every hour of effort. Specialized tasks that require skill and training can grant up to five points per hour,” the Sage explained.

  Jenna did some mental calculations—nope. She was not going to spend ten months cleaning dishes for a potion she didn’t even know the effects of. The problem was that they needed those ingredients.

  “You can also sell us the ingredients you gather, which will grant you contribution points. This is the quickest way. A rank three ingredient, such as the one used to make this potion, could easily grant you four or five hundred points,” the Sage added.

  Jenna and Bob exchanged glances. Gathering it was, then.

  Two hours later, they were battling a swarm of pygmy-like, vegetable humanoids that spat poison at them. Billy had joined them and was using his alchemical powers effectively.

  Jenna was enhancing Bob’s magic, allowing him to shoot endless ice spears at the pygmies using his Watercraft abilities. The creatures died by the dozens, but each corpse split into three upon hitting the ground, generating more enemies.

  “This isn’t working. Billy, do something!” Jenna shouted over the chaos of battle. “And by something, I do not mean neighing!” she added.

  “Swallow this,” he said, handing her a sinister-looking black pill. “It’s a Medicinal Pill of Overwhelming Darkness. They loaned it to me on credit. I still have to pay for it. It will increase your intimidation abilities.”

  Jenna swallowed the pill, feeling as though all the demons of Hades had taken residence in her stomach. Then she experienced a surge of power: Spirit +1, Charisma +1, Intimidation +1. She also knew these boosts would only last for ten seconds.

  Trusting her intuition, she lowered her Mind and Body stats to -5 and put all her remaining points into the enhanced stats: Spirit +6, Charisma +6, Intimidation +6.

  She had never enhanced a stat at that rank before. The extra points from secondary and tertiary stats, along with the compound interest rules used to calculate Pantean Stats, multiplied her intimidation power by nearly three thousandfold.

  “Begone!” she commanded the swarm of monsters. A wave of pure, unadulterated fear emanated from her, washing over the creatures. They died screaming in terror the moment the wave touched them. Once the effects of the pill faded, she returned to her normal limits and thanked her luck for that. She felt as though she could have shattered the entire sacred mountain into pebbles just by staring at it if she had kept pushing.

  “And that is one Everlush Root, a rank three ingredient. All it took us was one hour of fighting and the loss of a one rank four potion we still have to pay for,” Jenna said bitterly.

  “This isn't going to work either. We have to do it the Losers’ way.”

  “And what is the Losers’ way?” Bob asked.

  “We cheat,” Jenna answered.