Sofia had no more birds, and Pareth was also out. I still have the light-stones, I knew they would be useful at some point... A round white stone appeared in Sofia’s hand, starting to emit a soft white glow as she charged it with mana. This wasn’t even an enchanted item, and quite literally just a stone that was reactive to mana, unlike the water-stones that she had bought at the same time in Hooasow, which were hand-crafted enchanted items. That being said, they were still quite the expensive commodity, especially if you wanted good quality ones that had a strong glow.

She was getting ready to go, giving time for her bone armor to reform now that it wasn’t being crushed by several tons of stone, when she heard explosions. I guess that woman is fighting in the hive. It would be convenient if she could just die. I don’t want her seeking revenge, especially not when she can use a skill to know where I am.

In fact these bounty hunters closed in on me so fast, when I didn’t even know I would be here, it’s kind of weird. It’s like this goes past scrying and is actual future divination. That’s supposed to be extremely rare and unreliable… Unless she’s some sort of Oracle too? Couldn’t identify.

Sofia thought about many things as she went the only way she knew, back to the place where she killed the four other pursuers. Sure some section of the tunnels had collapsed on the way, but now she had a way to get past that. Slow and mana intensive, but still a way.

Eventually she reached the point where her double [Angel’s bolt] had impacted the group. She had the graveyard skeletons carry her to the other side, the collapse was massive and her [Graveyard of the righteous] barely had enough range for her skeletons to reach the other end. I wonder how she made it out of there, but it wasn’t by breaking through the rubble. Maybe she has a short-range teleportation skill… Sofia was ready to cancel her graveyard skill but she stopped herself right before doing so. Actually, go search if you can find anything left of the four dead, bring back whatever you find. If they can carry me they should be able to carry a corpse or two, right?

The skeletons came back about a minute later, they only brought back three things from the deceased, a pair of mithril daggers, a half-busted black-steel horned helmet, and some kind of small golden sphere. But they also brought back the legendary midenicite catalyst, which Sofia had completely forgotten about. I guess the normal one broke.

Sofia tried to store the items only to find out that the sphere was actually a storage item itself and since it wasn’t empty it couldn’t be stored. Well now’s not the time to be transferring items… She opened her helmet’s visor and chucked the tiny ball inside, which lodged itself in the bit of free space under her chin. That’ll do.

And now I need to follow the way back out, I still remember the whole path, I think.

Not long later, she reached the surface again, leaving the dungeon behind, she hadn’t come across a single Thrombber on her path. They must have all returned to the main hive. She had first sent the book’s skeleton rat before going anywhere, just in case. Even when she stepped out of the mine, she feared the dwarven diviner would be waiting for her outside, but there was no one.

She’s probably still in there then. No time to worry about it, the more distance I take before she comes out the better.

Assuming this group reached me by getting teleported to the nearest city… I should get as far away from anywhere one could teleport to. Preferably another place where I can train and get experience, maybe closer to the beastman continent since that’s where the second trial is… I know a nice place for that in a certain desert. That would be a long flight though.

I don’t want to bother Astelia again so soon. I guess I could go back to Drakron first, see what Kuli thinks and then pay for a teleport to the far east of the empire.

Still no news from Alith, I wonder what she’s doing, not killing anything at all, is she even eating properly?

Looking back one last time at the dark mine behind her, she flew to the north east, heading for Drakron, which she hoped the news of her bounty hadn’t reached yet. Not that many people could stop me at this point. Though I guess Kuli is one of them. But I can’t imagine her doing that.

Before going, she healed Pareth until he was good to go again, “Welcome back, glad we both survived this one.” Which was answered by a polite bow.

His bowing is a lot more intimidating than it was before now that he has the Ogre skeleton.

Sofia flew above the primordial lake as she traveled, the magic academy that was built on it was quite an impressive building, though she now felt that everything paled in comparison to Astelia's Moonlit Castle.

She had flown for about ten hours and was about to cross the border as night fell, flying low over the forest when she heard a *Ding*

Mana slammed into her as if she hit an invisible wall of pain, like a cramp through her whole body. It only lasted for a second, she crashed to the ground, falling through the early spring leaves of the trees. She heard a bone break, but it was one of her wings. Struggling to pick herself up and sit upright on the wet grass, she complained, “Aow! What was that for?!”

At first she thought it had been some kind of magical attack, but the true nature of this sudden interruption was something vastly different.

“EXCUSE ME WHAT?!” Sofia had a hard time focusing on the absurd numbers appearing before her.

‘You have murdered [Zerilda Hannar - Seer of hellfire lv. 273]’

‘[Way of the Fool] grants significant bonus experience’

‘You gained a level!’ * 33

‘[Way of the Fool] reached level 8’

…

‘[Way of the Fool] reached level 19’

‘[Sanctity] reached level 44’

‘[Graveyard of the righteous] reached level 107’

[Congratulations, your Saintomancer class reached level 150, +1 Active Skill Slot!]

[New Active Skills are available!]

[New Passive Skills are available!]

[New Active Skills are available!]

[New Passive Skills are available!]

“Am I… Dreaming? I’m level 180?!”

Pareth came out by himself, and grabbed the broken part of Sofia’s wing, holding it in place for Sofia to be able to heal it easier instead of having to regrow it.

“Thank you… Can you believe we killed her? It’s been like half a day… She fought these things down there for so long? It seemed like she had just passed the filter but here it says she was level 273… Woah. And this still counted as our kill? Because of our plan to throw her down?”

That’s insane.

So that’s where the pain came from, the abrupt level ups… I’d never heard of that, but I guess it’s not every day someone gets so many levels at once. Even killing the magisterium at the church was only 18 level ups. And that was already huge.

Well. That’s two things taken care of at once. No more diviner bounty hunters, no more immediate need for levels. I need to change my plans quite a lot…

Sofia looked up at the high mountain that marked the natural frontier between Skyreach and the Red Winds Empire. War had been raging around it for months as the two powers tried to secure positions. Right now, it was technically all territory of the Empire, Astelia had explained, they had gained much land since the beginning of the war.

“Well. This is now mine I decided. A perfect place to settle down. Right under everyone’s nose.”

She flew up to the top, and as she took a stroll down the mountainside through the night, she kept using [Graveyard of the Righteous] everywhere, until she found what she had been looking for, mountain caves. She let the half buried skeletons bring her down through the soil and the stone.

Inside was a relatively simple and underwhelming cave system. It had two ‘rooms’, one that was around four meters high and about as large as the trial Safehouse had been, and one the size of a bedroom. Kind of? What's the usual bedroom size anyway? That depends on how rich you are...

This will be a bedroom, so it's bedroom sized!

There were no big openings leading to the cavern, it was only crossed by a very weak stream of clear water, slowly eroding the ground, and exiting by a small hole.

“The ground is a bit of a slope. And quite wet. But that will do for a secret necromancer base. Now I need to carve it out to a nice shape.”

She summoned the soldier from the book and gave it the mithril dagger. "You're on carving duty, buddy, have fun."

Wait I have two more mithril daggers now that I got from the corpses. Wanna take part, Pareth? The skeleton reached out to grab the two weapons. We need a nice square room with a flat ground, don't even worry about the ceiling for now.

The skeletons got to work, and Sofia took out a rocking chair that came from Zangdar’s castle, and propped it up against the wall at the lowest point of the smaller ‘room’.

“And now for the serious part. Time to get more skills.”