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But for now, it worked just fine. So he got to work. He figured he’d spend a couple hours out here in the dead of night getting started on the ritual circle, then cover it up, go to bed, and when he woke up way later than everyone else, pass it off as him recovering from his injuries. His mom probably wouldn’t be a fan of him sleeping in, but as long as he got some stuff done later in the day she shouldn’t have had a problem with it.

With the adrenaline from his recent battle still powering his body, he knelt and began tracing lines along the floor. The methodical work of drawing the ritual circle was somehow relaxing and engaging at the same time, able to perfectly fit what his mind needed, and he easily sank into his work, painting the pastel red magically coming from his finger across the stone.

Zeth continued working, losing himself in the ritual magic as he slowly, neatly drew the lines on the shed floor. With the curtain drawn to separate this back section of the shed from the entrance, he was blocked out from seeing the outside world as he labored—though, he probably wouldn’t have even noticed anything going on outside, with how razor-focused he was on the circle.

That focus was broken when a knock sounded out from the door.

“Zeth?” Sophie’s voice called from outside. “Zeth, are you in there?”

He blinked, feeling like he’d just been broken out of a trance. What was going on? Where was he? He glanced down at the ritual circle. It was…almost done. How long had he been—

“Zeth, did you fall asleep in there? It’s time to wake up! Mom made breakfast!”

With a deep breath, he tried to regain his bearings. Light shone through the curtain. It was morning already? He hadn’t even noticed the time passing. It must’ve been at least eight hours; how did this happen?

“I’m coming in,” Sophie called, and he heard the door creaking open. Her voice echoed from within the building, “Hey, why’s there a pig tied up outside?”

He took another shaky breath, climbing up to his knees and hurriedly looking around for something to cover the circle with. “U-uh, yeah, I’m up. Sorry, I did fall asleep. Go tell mom I’m coming!”

Sophie giggled a laugh that Zeth would’ve thought was adorable had he not been frantically grabbing the cloth lying on the table nearby and throwing it over the massive circle. From the sound of her footsteps, he could tell she was stepping further inside. “How did you even fall asleep in here? It’s so gross! What were you doing?”

“Uh, hey, don’t come back here! Just—”

Sophie pulled the curtain open just as he pulled the cloth to cover up the majority of the circle. The edges poked out, but in the low light, he just hoped she wouldn’t see them.

“Woah,” she said, staring at him. “You look sick. Are you okay?”

At her mention of it, he did feel sick. Or, rather, he felt tired. Exhausted. He’d stayed up working all night and hadn’t even noticed how much of a toll it’d taken on him until just now. “Um, yeah. Sorry. Just shaken up after the whole monster attack thing last night. So…”

“Oh,” she said. “Well, I don’t think you should be scared. It lit on fire. I saw it myself! And it looked really weird and ugly, so I don’t think it came from here. It probably came from another realm. So, there aren’t any more of them around, I bet.”

“Y-yeah, that’s probably true,” he replied. “Good thinking. Um, anyway, let’s get going out to—”

Sophie gasped and pointed at the ritual lines by Zeth’s feet. “Woah, what’s that on the floor?!”

“We’re going now,” Zeth said, rushing forward and dragging her out of the shed.

“No, look back there, under the blanket,” she said, craning her head to look behind her. “What is it?”

“It’s animal blood,” he said. “Blood and guts and corpses, all mushed together in a super gross stew that spilled out on the ground. Don’t look or you’ll get too grossed out and throw up.”

“Ew!” She laughed, but turned back around as he guided her away from the shed.

Zeth chuckled nervously. “Yeah, I was trying to clean it all up when you came in. Sorry. But, uh, don’t mention that to mom, alright? I don’t want her to know I made such a mess.”

“Mom says it’s not good to keep secrets. What if she gets mad?”

“No, no, don’t worry about it. This is just…I don’t want her to get worried and go in there and see the mess. I’ve seen a lot of animal guts before, but she hasn’t, and I don’t want her to get sick. Get it?”

“Oh, okay.”

“Right. Hey, how about a game of Scrim later, huh? I wanna try to get better at it so that I can at least give you some challenge. Soon enough you’ll have nobody to play against!”

A smile broke out across her face. “Yeah, let’s go play right now!”

As she ran ahead toward the house, Zeth took another deep breath. He was really tired. How had he not noticed the time passing? It was like all that time working was a dream, having passed in an instant.

In a sense, it was sort of a good thing. Drawing those circles was boring and hard work, and he got to skip it. Eight or so hours of progress put toward the requirement of ten.

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He blinked. Speaking of progress…

Gazing into his mind, he looked at the System notifications he’d missed in the eight hours of semi-consciousness.

[Vile Focus’s Rank has increased to 3.

+1 Skill Point. You have 4 Skill Points.]

[Vile Focus’s Rank has increased to 4.

+1 Skill Point. You have 5 Skill Points.]

[Ritual Circle Mastery’s Rank has increased to 6.

+1 Skill Point. You have 6 Skill Points.]

Zeth frowned. Vile Focus. In its description, it said he’d get “less distracted” while drawing ritual circles. He felt like, if anything, he was getting more distracted while drawing them, unable to perceive anything in the outside world. But maybe that was the wrong framing. He was paying less attention to things that distracted him from the rituals. He forgot the time, where he was, the fact that he needed to stop soon. And because he had no idea he was even being affected like that, he’d allowed himself to get completely carried away. Was Vile Focus doing that?

He’d need to pay attention to that next time he worked. Most of the time, Skills like that would come with some sort of implicit ability to switch their effects on and off. Now that he knew about Vile Focus’s ‘less distracted’ effect, he should’ve been able to ignore it—or at least control it so he didn’t lose track of time like that again.

While looking at his Status, he also noticed a new Universal Skill that he’d unlocked and hadn’t noticed—Heat Resistance. The one he’d been planning on unlocking anyway.

[Heat Resistance - Cost: 14 Skill Points

When you are dealt heat-based damage, treats your Endurance Stat as though it were 25 higher for the purposes of reducing said damage, plus an additional 5 for each Rank in this Skill.]

He must’ve gotten it when he got burned by the Hellfire Ritual he’d used to kill the fleshtaker. Those injuries still hurt like hell, so he figured it made sense that would’ve counted as “severe burns” by the System in order to unlock it. Though, the other Skill he’d wanted to unlock—Self-Destruction—still hadn’t appeared. That one said it’d require him to cause “life-threatening harm” to himself in order to unlock it, and apparently, those burns didn’t count as life-threatening, and neither had the building he’d collapsed on himself. Zeth wasn’t sure whether to feel relieved that he apparently wasn’t in that much danger, or insulted that the System was downplaying his situation.

Regardless, he only had six Skill Points right now, so he wouldn’t be able to purchase any of this stuff anyway. He’d want to Rank up his Skills and finish that Empowerment Ritual so he could Level Up before he really considered what he’d want to go for next. Who knew—maybe this next Level would bring him his most powerful Skill yet. Not that such a thing was likely, considering the still-baffling effect of Forbidden Knowledge. He was still unsure about whether to avoid that one at all costs, or rush toward purchasing it as soon as possible.

Though, at Level four currently, his next Level Up would likely unlock something majorly powerful. Zeth had heard about other Classes, how they typically got their most powerful Skills at certain milestones, and the milestones that came every five Levels often brought with them massive benefits. Entire purchase strategies often revolved around ensuring you had enough Skill Points every five Levels to afford the newest Skill that’d be unlocked at that point as soon as possible.

Though, there was always the possibility that Zeth would have no use for whatever he got, so he didn’t want to get his hopes up too much. Instead, he continued ahead, following Sophie as she eagerly ran toward the house.

After his game with Sophie—she won once again, of course—Zeth ate with his family, trying his best to hide his exhaustion and pretend that he’d gotten a full night’s sleep.

He took a bite of the roasted potatoes his mom had made and frowned. “Are you planning on selling these? I think they may have been harvested a little early. They taste funny.”

“Oh, I know,” his mom said with a sigh. “With your father gone, we don’t have the time to go out and protect the outer areas of the farm near the wilderness from monsters. Another beast realm portal opened up not too long ago, and the guard is still working on clearing them all out. And you know how even the less dangerous ones eat up all of our crops. So I just went ahead and harvested them as soon as I could, and they turned out bad.”

“I thought the guard patrolled far enough out from the farm’s edge that they took care of most of the monsters before they got to your crops,” Zeth said. “Was it really that bad of a portal? Let that many monsters out that they couldn’t deal with all of them?”

“No, they’ve just been slowly decreasing the area they patrol over the years,” she replied. “I guess most of that happened after you were off working for Otis and Roul’s, so you wouldn’t have noticed. But monsters have become an increasingly large problem for us lately. And with taxes for farmers increasing, I’m not sure if it would be profitable in the first place to try and sell these unripe potatoes.”

Zeth sighed. “And you still don’t think it would be a good idea to sell the farm and try doing something else?”

Her nostrils flared in anger. “I’ve already said I do not want to have this discussion with you, Zeth. I’ve explained to you countless times why—”

“Why not at least try farming somewhere else?” he interrupted. “Move to another village with the money from selling this place, or something, if the location is causing so many problems. I don’t see how it’d be so impossible to—”

She cut him off in response. “Traveling costs a lot more money than you seem to think it does. And there’s more to consider here than just money. We inherited this farm from my mother, and she inherited it from her father before her. To abandon it would be to abandon our ancestors.”

“I doubt traveling costs as much as running an unprofitable farm. And I hate to break it to you, but the previous owners of this place are already dead. Abandoning them shouldn’t be a concern when you’re avoiding doing so by stifling the potential of your living daughter. Have you ever even considered her needs?”

“Considered her needs?” She scoffed. “Says the man who ran away from a monster—from us—to go get crushed by a building last night.”

Zeth’s hand clenched around the side of the table, knuckles turning white. There were a million different things he could say, but he chose not to.

She continued. “You keep talking about this nebulous ‘potential,’ while completely ignoring the much more important safety of your own family. Not just then, but constantly! Who in their right mind would encourage their baby sister to move out of the house and travel countless miles away to go to some far-off magic college?! Do you understand how dangerous such a thing would be? She’s much better off right here. So don’t you even pretend—”

A knock on the door cut her off.

Zeth turned away before she could continue. “I’ll get it.”

He glanced over at Sophie as he got up. She’d shrunken down at the table, looking between him and their mom in obvious fear.

Ugh, I’m such an idiot, he thought. I shouldn’t have started an argument like that in front of her. C’mon Zeth, you know she gets uneasy when you and mom fight. I’ll have to apologize to her later.

Whoever was at the door knocked again—a hard, unfriendly rap on the wooden surface. Was it Turin? He said he’d be coming by to check on Zeth’s injuries again today.

Whatever, he thought. I just need to go see who it is, pass them off to mom, then go back out and finish up the ritual circle in the shed. I don’t like leaving it there just barely covered up by a blanket, ready to be found by anyone.

He walked over and opened the door, only to find himself face-to-face with a set of three well-armed guards. They wore silvery breastplates emblazoned with the emblem of the Oberian Empire on their chests, scabbards with swords at their sides, and extremely serious expressions on their faces.

“Lieutenant Jandor Smill,” the one in front announced, “here to investigate reports of illegal Class usage in this area. Specifically, there were several witnesses to what we believe to be a Blood Mage’s magic being cast right by this house. Do you mind if we come in?”