Chapter 316

Viper was violently spat out of the air.

He hit the loose ash on top of the hill, tumbling head over heels until he slammed into the base of the weathered gravestone.

He groaned. Sitting up, he carefully brushed the grey dirt off his new trench coat. He expected to see Red and Haster keeping a vigilant watch over the perimeter. 

Instead, he heard a loud, metallic crash, followed by a string of very colorful curses.

"I told you not to sweep the leg when the ash is this deep!" Haster roared.

Viper looked up.

Haster was currently holding Red in a fierce, highly aggressive headlock, dragging the struggling duelist through the dirty ash. The older player looked like a complete mess. His pristine silver armor was caked in thick, grey mud, and there was a highly noticeable smear of blood dripping from his nose.

Red was kicking his legs wildly, trying to break free, while laughing hysterically.

"It was a perfect sweep!" Red yelled, his voice muffled by Haster's armored arm. "You're just mad I tripped you and that troll punched you in the face on your way down! It's a valid combo! Admit it!"

"I am going to throw you off this hill," Haster growled, tightening his grip.

Viper stared at them. They had clearly gotten bored waiting and decided to start a petty, brutal sparring match just to pass the time, which had immediately devolved into a dirty street brawl.

Viper cleared his throat loudly.

Haster froze. He released his grip, letting Red drop face-first into the ash.

Red scrambled up, spitting grey dirt out of his mouth. He looked at Viper, then immediately opened his interface to check the party status. He blinked at the number next to the tailor's name.

"Level one?" Red shouted, his eyes going wide. He threw his hands up in the air, letting out a loud bark of relief. "Oh, thank the heavens! Level one! If you had come out of there without a Legendary class, I was going to demand triple the Genesis Credits for standing in this miserable ash. Do you know how many times this guy tried to throw me into a rock?" 

Haster wiped the blood off his nose with the back of his gauntlet, glaring at Red for a second before turning his attention to Viper. Even though the tailor was back to the starting level, he carried himself differently. He definitely didn’t move like newbie with base stats at only 10

"You got it," Haster said quietly, a genuine smile breaking through the dirt and blood on his face. 

"I got it," Viper confirmed, pulling the legendary silver cloak from his inventory and draping it over his arm, stepping around the patch of ash where Haster had clearly face-planted.  "Let's go home."

.. . . . 

The trio walked through the main gates of Stormbreak, leaving their travel carriage behind. 

Viper immediately stopped in his tracks.

An ogre walked past carrying a heavy wooden crate of supplies. He didn't just carry it; he hoisted it onto one broad shoulder and struck a dramatic, muscle-flexing pose for a passing group of villagers, flawlessly flipping his flowing, silky hair. 

A few yards away, a centaur trotted past looking incredibly majestic, tossing its perfectly groomed mane and offering a dashing wink to a stunned merchant. They were followed by a squad of Valiant Orcs who marched in perfect, runway-model synchronization, looking like they belonged on a magazine cover rather than a workforce.

Red stared at the ogre, his jaw hanging open. "What is going on? We were only gone for a month!"

Haster rubbed his eyes, looking just as bewildered. "The Guildmaster mentioned in the guild chat that he and the new recruit, Iris, had tracked down the next set of coordinates. He must have mass-teleported them back while we were traveling. But... why are the ogres and centaurs just as ridiculously gorgeous as the Orcs we saw before we left?"

Red shuddered, watching the ogre blow a kiss to a very confused blacksmith. "I swear, Boss attracts the absolute biggest weirdos on the continent. Thank the heavens he has normal, well-adjusted guild member like me to balance things out."

Viper stopped walking. He looked at Red.

Haster slowly turned his head to look at Red.

Neither of them said a single word. The silence stretched on for five agonizingly long seconds as they stared flatly at the man who had just spent an entire month trying to sweep-kick his own party member into highly corruptive ash and mock them for it purely for his own amusement.

Red coughed, awkwardly adjusting his twin rapiers. "What?"

Viper simply sighed and shook his head. To be fair, recruiting monster citizens who were dangerously attractive and dramatically vain didn't even crack the top ten list of ridiculous things Rudra had done since founding the guild. Viper just accepted it and kept walking.

The central plaza of Stormbreak was loud.

A long wooden table had been dragged out near the fountain, loaded with massive platters of roasted meat and fresh bread. Rudra sat at the head of the table, watching Kratos, the massive black-and-gold lion, try to sneak a whole roasted tiger off a tray when no one was looking. 

It wasn't actually the Guildmaster's real body. Rudra was still out exploring, actively searching for the remaining hidden tribes to teleport back to the territory. But his Echo Clone was perfectly capable of hosting a welcome-back party, and it carried the exact same confident, slightly chaotic energy as the original. 

Viper stood near the end of the table, holding a stack of newly crafted dark leather trench coats that he made on the way back. 

Galahad walked over, his heavy steel plate armor clanking with every step. The tank looked at the coat Viper held out to him.

"I thank thee, Master Tailor," Galahad said, keeping up his usual medieval roleplay. "But my shoulders are quite broad. Most cloaks snag on the metal pauldrons when I raise my shield."

"Put it on," Viper said simply.

Galahad slid his arms into the sleeves. The coat caught tightly on the left shoulder plate, bunching up near his neck.

Viper stepped forward, a small iron needle appearing in his fingers.

"I don't work with steel, only cloth and leather," Viper said calmly. "So we adjust the cloth."

His hands blurred.

He snipped the reinforced seam on Galahad's shoulder, adjusted the leather to perfectly frame the steel pauldron, and restitched the entire joint in less than four seconds. The needle moved so fast it looked like a silver spark.

Galahad blinked. He rolled his shoulder. The coat sat perfectly around the metal, leaving his arm completely free to move.

Galahad dropped his medieval accent entirely. "Holy crap," he whispered, staring at his arm in disbelief.

Ash walked over, carrying a plate of food. The earnest Magic Swordsman smiled at Viper.

"Congratulations on the class, Viper," Ash said. "Since your level reset to one, Galahad and I can bus you through the goblin caves tomorrow. We'll get you back to level fifty in no time."

Viper adjusted his cuffs. He looked at the earnest younger player and offered a dry smile. "I appreciate the offer, Ash. But I'm currently level one hundred and twenty-four."

Ash stopped chewing. "What?"

During the two-week walk back from the Ashfall Region, Red and Haster hadn't just escorted him. They had formed a party and deliberately crippled the high-level mutated beasts, reducing their massive health bars to a tiny sliver. They then let Viper step in and land the final blow. Even with redacted exp gain due to level difference with the party , the sheer volume of experience points of level 350 monsters had rocketed him completely past the beginner stages before they even reached the city gates.

"I also kept my base attributes when the class changed," Viper added smoothly. "I'm fairly certain I could strangle a normal goblin with a measuring tape right now. I'll be fine."

Ash laughed out loud, thinking the measuring tape part was a joke. He shook his head and walked away to grab a drink.

Gold hovered near the edge of the table. The timid berserker wrung her hands nervously. She stepped up to Viper, her face slightly flushed.

"Viper," Gold asked quietly. "Um. Now that you have the Legendary skills... can you make heavy plate armor look, well, a little more slimming? It adds so much bulk around the waist."

Viper looked at her heavy metal chest plate. "I only work with cloth and leather, Gold. I can't reforge heavy steel."

Gold's shoulders slumped slightly.

"But," Viper continued, mentally calculating the structural lines of her armor, "I can tailor a reinforced dark leather surcoat to wear over the breastplate. I'll taper the waist seams and build the hem to hide the bulky side clasps. It will create a much sharper silhouette."

"Really? Thank you!" Gold beamed, hurrying away to tell Red.

At the head of the table, Rudra's clone stood up.

The low chatter around the plaza died down. The Genesis Guild members turned their attention to their Guildmaster. The clone was grinning, leaning heavily on the black staff.

"Alright, listen up," the clone called out, his voice carrying easily over the courtyard. "We have a new Legend in the house. Viper completed his quest and earned his spot."

The guild cheered. Red clapped loudly, leaning against the fountain with a very satisfied smirk on his face.

"But we aren't stopping here," the clone continued. He rested his hands on the wooden table. "This guild is built to push limits. I want all of you aiming for the top. So, I'm setting a new policy right now."

The clone pointed his staff toward the tall stone spire of the Sage's Tower in the distance.

"Anyone in Genesis who reaches a Legendary class," the clone announced, "gets three free skill transfers from the Sage's Tower registry. You pick the skills, and I'll impart them. No genesis credits required. Consider it a graduation gift. But make sure you fulfill the criteria to learn those skills."

The plaza went completely silent.

Red's jaw dropped. Haster gripped his spear tightly. Current and Spark exchanged a look of pure, unrestrained greed.

Getting a Legendary skill that was worth millions of credits would normally require more than a year of intense guild contribution or loot or gold in equivalent amount. Here, Rudra was giving them away for free. And he was offering three of them.

"Three?" Red whispered. He immediately turned to Gold. "Babe, we are going to grind dungeons until our eyes bleed. I need a Legend class."

The clone laughed, picking up his glass. "Get back to work, then. To Viper."

"To Viper!" the guild shouted in unison.

Viper raised his own glass. He looked around the plaza, at the people laughing and arguing over their food. He thought about the quiet, ancient hall he had just left, and the Phantom Cloth waiting in the dark.

He had a lot of work to do. And he knew exactly where to start.