“You just needed one, right?” Sasha asked, and Liliana nodded with a smile as the woman tossed the poor goblin at her. Liliana slashed through the thing’s body as it was in the air, bisecting it. The essence flooded her but this time something felt different.

  “She’s Ranking up! Defensive positions! Charles! Sam! Keep them off us! Daniel clear the back! My Lords keep to her! Eric, stay by her!” Sasha barked out orders as the others closed ranks around Liliana and Lelantos. Liliana had already dropped her weapon into her bracelet before the heat became too much to allow her to focus on anything else. A Rank Up had never felt like this before, like her body was overheating from the inside out. The guards, however, seemed familiar with these events and worked like a well-oiled machine around her.

  It wasn’t as painful as a Soul bond, but it was definitely the second worst feeling she’d ever experienced in either life. It felt like she was being reformed, like she was being forged. The level ups seemed paltry in comparison. The heat they offered nothing compared to a breakthrough like this.

  Suddenly, Liliana could understand why Rank 7 was the very minimum for acceptance into the Academy. The Ranks before it weren’t true Ranks. They were like comparing a child's strength to that of an adult. Her head tilted back as all her muscles constricted at once, tightening like steel cords barely constrained by her skin. She felt her Mana core fluctuating, expanding and shrinking wildly as her Mana ran rampant, fed by the essence in her body, rioting and reforming her. Time lost all meaning as heat overtook every sense.

  Liliana fell forward, limp on Lelantos back as if she was a puppet with her string cut by some godly hand. Her chest rose and fell erratically as she struggled to take in precious air. Lifting a head that felt far too heavy, she looked around to see they had returned to their camp at some point. The others had settled down, some were even playing cards. Emyr was sitting by Lelantos, who growled when Sasha approached them.

  “Hold beastie, your mistress is coherent, and I wanted to offer her something to drink,” the guards-woman held up a waterskin and shook it to show the tiger. Lelantos allowed her to approach, but the way his hackles raised showed he didn’t quite trust her. Through their connection, Liliana could detect his distress. He understood the pain of Rank ups, but it seemed sensing her in any form of substantial discomfort set him on edge. It was made worse by the fact he could not aid her through it.

  “L-” Liliana tried to speak, but her throat protested immediately, too dry and raw to form words. Liliana winced as she realized her jaw was sore, too. She had been clenching her teeth so hard it was a miracle she hadn’t broken any of them. She took the waterskin in weak fingers and gulped the blessed liquid, nearly crying at the relief it offered her throat and mouth.

  Handing the empty skin back to Sasha, Liliana gave her a thankful smile before she finally addressed the notifications flashing for her attention. Immediately she shooed away the experience ones, focusing on the ones relevant to her Rank Up and her next class selection.

  Liliana disregarded the classes she had already seen, though she gave the system a side eye for Thief and Actor being offered. Apparently her Illusion affinity, [Stealth], and [Deception] skills had affected her class offers. She looked at the two Uncommon classes even if she knew she wouldn’t take them. Starting at a base class would set her back compared to an offered evolution.

  Liliana winced at the two classes. Neither would fit her fighting style very well, and Tamer would directly cause her current fighting style to be unsustainable. Along with taking a tithe of her current stats to sustain it. It was obvious it was a Rank 7 class, the payoff for it was amazing and if Liliana was the kind to be happy standing in the back lines, she’d take it. But she loved the strength she found with a weapon in her hands and an enemy standing right before her. Standing in the back and expecting others to take care of everything for her felt too much like the very life she had been trying to escape on Earth. Being the weak and pitiful girl who couldn’t even stand on her own.

  Paladin felt too much like Vita would control her, and Liliana wasn’t sure how she felt about the goddess. She appreciated the option for a second life, but she was beginning to think she’d taken a monkey’s paw deal. Her new life hadn’t been bad, but having fourteen years of memories of neglect and abuse shoved into her psyche wasn’t something she wanted to ever repeat.

  Living a life where she was under constant threat of assassination, yet unable to leave because she did not know how to even begin to really support herself, wasn’t entirely worth all the magic and pretty dresses she had now. So being more or less turned into the marionette of the very goddess who had stuck her in such a fate didn’t sound like a good time to her. Liliana denied both the classes and looked at the one she really wanted.

  Liliana accepted the Blade Dancer class immediately and several new notifications popped up for her attention.

  Liliana rubbed her head at the influx of new information, frowning slightly at the amount of skills and spells she’d lost with them combining. She knew it was a possibility with her ranking up, but she hadn’t expected quite so many. Her eyes locked on her quintessential skill, or her ultimate skill. It sounded interesting, [Radiant Revelry].

  Liliana whistled quietly at the skill. It truly fit with the term ‘Ultimate Skill’. She would have control over anyone who fell under the skills light, which could be considerable. She itched to try out the skill just to see what would happen, but she was loath to waste it when not in battle. For now, she pushed it to the side, though a part of her mind was mentally cooing over the skill and lavishing it with praise. It was a rather nice skill that would certainly change the flow of a battle. It made her wonder what skills Alistair and Emyr had gotten when they hit Rank 7.

  Turning her attention to the rest of her new spells and skills, she pulled them up to review them.

  Liliana groaned and waved off the notifications after reading over them a few times. The new abilities were good, but almost all of them were AOE utility skills, meant to be used with others. [Solar Samba] was the best, likely a result of coming from two of her higher leveled skills. It wasn’t as good as the skills had been when she’d activated them together. The increasing returns from the stacking percentages had made the combination rather strong.

  Had it been purely a combination, she would’ve had closer to a 70% increase in Speed. So in a way she’d been nerfed, but she could now share the increase with allies. The skills and spells that had been combined hadn’t been reset to level one either, thankfully. They seemed to have been set at the average level of whatever skills they’d been created from, which meant that [Dancing Doubles] got hit pretty hard as [Mirror Image] and [Obscure] hadn’t been highly leveled. [Dancing Doubles] was level 12, [Solar Samba] was level 39 and [Dancer’s Domain] was level 33. Which explained why Samba and Domain were such expensive channels, and even why Doubles had a rather large cost, compared to level 1 spells, anyway.

  Her new abilities were rather impressive as well, though she frowned at [Healing Harmony]. She knew healing skills and spells generally couldn’t be self cast, but she hadn’t expected to get such a spell nor had she expected to run into that particular drawback so soon. It really was a spell that only benefited her teammates and Bonds and did nothing for her but drain her Mana. At least it hadn’t cannibalized [Regeneration] to make it, though if it had, it might’ve healed her too.

  An image of Polaris, bleeding out and dying in her arms as she struggled to force her Mana to obey her, came to mind, and she revised her first impression. The skill would be a good one, if only to keep Death far away from those she cared for. It would also be fairly easy to level up if she ran it after battles, or when they were resting. At such a low regeneration right now it wouldn’t heal much, but she hoped to get it up to the point her [Regeneration] was at, which could heal her 50 Health per second for 100 Mana and 100 Stamina per second. Group heals had a far worse Mana conversion rate than skills like [Regeneration] but it could go higher before it became a truly ridiculous Mana sink.

  Liliana leaned back against Lelantos, who had calmed considerably as she examined all of her notifications. She pulled up her sheets to check over the new information and had to pull her notifications back up when her stats were far higher than she expected. Finally noticing the +15 for each stat point she’d been granted upon Ranking up. She looked over her stats and pulled up her skills and spells again before allocating her points. Her new class would help pump up her most used stats, but her Intelligence and Health were getting left behind.

  Satisfied with her stat allocation, she confirmed the change. The minor warmth that filled her didn’t even compare to the bonfire it had felt like the Rank Up had stuck her in when it pumped all her stats up by 15. Liliana’s eyes caught on her Speed stat, which was by and far her highest. Even before the bonus added by her gear. She could cross a room in the time it took to take a breath. She was certain if she was on Earth she’d beat any professional Olympic racer for speed without breaking a sweat. If this kind of speed was what one could expect at a measly Rank 7, what could one expect at Rank 4? Or 3? Or even 1? What kind of god like stats did they have?

  The thought made Liliana excited. She could one day hold that kind of power. The power that was only dreamed of in her previous life was a genuine possibility in this life. She could have the power to destroy cities, nations, reform continents. A tail flicked in her face and brought her back to the present, where she didn’t even yet have the power to survive on her own.

  With a sigh, she stretched out sore muscles. Health regeneration was a wonderful thing, but it seemed to ignore smaller aches and pains, like bruises or sore muscles. Anything that didn’t actually lower her body’s overall Health seemed to be ignored by it. [Regeneration] would take care of such things as it was a healing specific skill, and had a wider range of capabilities than just standard regeneration. Liliana cracked her neck and garnered the attention of her companions.

  “So you’re done?” Alistair asked, voice impatient. Liliana rolled her eyes, but nodded.

  “Yes, I’m Rank 7 now, a Blade Dancer,” Liliana answered him as she stood and moved to the fire, taking a bowl of food from Eric, who activated some healing spell and banished the last of her aches. Liliana nodded at him in thanks as all the little pains that had been bothering her vanished.

  “Finally, it took you forever,” Alistair teased and Liliana forsook responding to shove the food into her mouth, finding she was starving. How long had she been out of it?

  “Should make getting through the rest of the dungeon easier,” Sasha commented, getting a round of agreement. Liliana flushed and looked down. She knew she hadn’t really been holding them back. If anything, bringing Lelantos sped everything up. But she still felt like a bit of a leech, being at the lowest level in the party.

  “Do you think we’ll reach the boss chamber tomorrow?” Sam asked, and Daniel waved a hand in the air.

  “The day after is more likely,” Daniel answered, and the group nodded. Liliana frowned again. Her Rank up had probably ruined their days leveling with the group waiting on her. They’d all known it would happen. Nevertheless, it was a day lost.

  “Let’s all get a good night of rest so we can get as far as possible into the dungeon tomorrow,” Sasha ordered them, and Liliana finished her food quickly.

  “You just want to say that so you can beat Sam for kills,” Liliana teased tentatively, and Sasha smirked, waving a hand around.

  “That too,” Sasha admitted and Sam shouted out.

  “You’re just jealous your cave woman tactics aren’t better than my bow!” Sam defended himself, summoning Charles.

  “Like you’re one to talk! Half your kills are stolen from me!” Charles protested, throwing a fire ball between his hands threateningly.

  “It’s called securing a kill!” Sam defended, and Liliana rolled her eyes as she quietly slipped away from the brewing argument. She didn’t want to get a stray fireball to the face. She settled on her bedroll by Lelantos, forgoing a tent in favor of staying close to her bond.

  Body thrumming with newfound power and mind heavy with exhaustion, Liliana fell to sleep, eager for tomorrow and the chance to prove herself and try out the new skills and spells she’d gained.