Might as Well

“So, we’re in agreement?” Sam asked as the people in the room exchanged looks.

Lucy looked raring to go, happy to begin a bureaucratic and ‘lawful’ war against the probable invasion of the blood mages and guilds controlled by them. She had to prepare contingencies and arrange – with the help of Tim – some scouts and spies to figure out the movement of the guilds. She would be also organizing the cleansing rituals for those select people who really wanted to lose the Life of Blood skills.

Tim, aside from his tasks with Lucy, would be doing his usual job of taking out people who looked wrongly at the company, gathering even more harem members, and setting up some rumors about the blood magic.

Sam was pretty sure that the brothers planning the Blood War would instantly trigger some insanity if the general populace knew what it meant to use the Life of Blood skill and similar blood magic. Based on the memories he inherited, even without that, the perpetrators behind that chaotic time cast some rather impressive and massive spells.

Fueled by the blood of countless players who couldn’t protect themselves.

He really wanted to avoid witnessing those spells in person, however, he had a feeling that wouldn’t be possible.

Claire would have Katie and Isabella leak the information about blood magic to their families, which would mean that some of the most powerful guilds would be there to protect the country, and most importantly, owe Sam one.

Sam had to suppress a devilish grin at the image of those people realizing that…

Adam would stick to the guild, organizing, training, and preparing them with the knowledge of who they would be fighting.

Lara would be later debriefed and told to prepare her new fortress for future fights. Sam had no illusions about having to defend that property to the last man as soon as it was finished. Most guilds were just in the process of building – or even just buying – their first guild houses. The fact that his guild, Chrysalis, managed to get the deed to an entire city and then build a fortress city on it?

They would go absolutely bananas!

Currently, they were occupied with the raid fractures, distortion valleys, hunting for titans, trying to reach level 101, and making money. But as soon as those things lost their luster in their eyes, they would turn their attention to Sam and his guild.

Best to prepare as much as they could!

“What are you going to do, Sam?” Lucy asked with a curious look on her face. “Off to do some more shenanigans?”

He shook his head then thrust his thumb at Tim and Adam. “I’m going to help these guys to get rid of the skill, then gather the team and get them over the first barrier.”

“You have all the reagents? No, wait… don’t answer that!” came the response from Lucy as Sam just chuckled.

He waited half a minute for anyone to speak up then slapped his knees with his hands, let out a sigh, and stood up.

“Welp, then come on Adam, Tim. Let’s get you cleansed of that nasty-nasty blood magic!” he announced cheerfully then turned toward the door and began walking away, ignoring the fact that both men shared a concerned look and then stared at Lucy pleadingly as she pretended to be busy with her nonexistent paperwork.

Claire was just very confused and the bird on Lucy’s shoulder let out a call that some would generously call laughter.

After they left the meeting room, they walked down into the basement, where a ritual room was set up. Thick stone walls, flooring, and ceiling, with all sorts of implements and tools ready for anyone wanting to perform a ritual (if they got permission).

Adam and Tim settled into a far corner, sitting on the present chairs, and began discussing the actions they would take while Sam shucked off his jacket and began carving.

The ritual itself wasn’t hard to get. Either you asked one of the purity-focused temples or monasteries and performed a deed worthy of knowledge, or found it in a dusty corner in a random library, got it as a random drop from an appropriate fracture, or did as he did.

Look it up in the secret library of a secret organization!

Sam this time didn’t fight the grin that appeared on his face. Sometimes, it was really nice playing a game with the knowledge of the future.

It took around an hour to carve the basic ritual, as it was a simple sacrifice ritual. The person using it would sacrifice their skill – and every sub-skill or connected skill – and their own life force, which in players would mean they would lose some experience points and gain purity in exchange.

However, as always, Sam had some…ideas…

Usually, the reward would be the loss of the skill and an increase in stats, or if the player was lucky an actual purity-based skill. Some players tried to game the system and use the ritual to ‘forget’ a bunch of skills, get back to level one, and start with increased status points, but sadly it provided diminished returns.

Hell, if one went too far, it would start harming the player, purifying them if they lacked the necessary skills.

With his runic skills, however, he hoped to increase the chance of gaining a skill higher.

Finished, he got up from the ground and called out. “Alright, I’m done! Who wants to go first?”

The two men looked at each other then Sam watched as hands flashed out, held in a peculiar fashion with blinding speed.

“Rock!”

“Paper!”

“Damn…” Adam cursed before shaking himself and walking over to the ritual circle standing in the middle. “Need me to do anything?”

“Put away the armor. Only cloth!”

Light flashed and Adam stood there in all his glory with just a cloth shirt and pants covering him. Sam nodded, made sure there were no hidden metals on him, then turned back to the ritual circle. Slowly, with measured steps and careful movement, placed the required reagents that he had picked up over his many adventures and trips to the Auction House.

“Huh, you really have all that just in your inventory?” Adam asked.

Instead of answering Sam just focused on the ritual.

After finishing with the reagents, all related to the concept of cleansing and purity, like high-quality silver or moonflower petals, he took a step back.

“This may hurt!”

“Wha-?”

With expertise he sent his own mana to the ritual, igniting the first part while also weaving magic into the air, creating several more circles from illusionary runes. The circle on the ground consisted of four circles, each representing one of the main elements to which he began adding three more.

One to invoke the pure light of the moon, one to call upon the searing heat of the sun, and a final one – the biggest gamble – that called upon the person’s willingness to seek purity. Soon, the three bands of rotating runes in the air and the carved circles on the ground began to shine. Red like the flames of the hearth at home, blue like the gentle ocean, green for the ever-renewing nature, yellow for the cleansing winds, gentle moonlight from a full moon, searing orange from the noon sun, and finally an odd steel-like gray, reminding Sam of used stainless steel that stood the test of time.

Meanwhile, Adam just stood in the middle of the circle, frozen, head faced upwards, arms thrown backward, blind to the world as the magic began flowing into him, purging his whole body of the unwelcome elements.

Within a moment, black sludge started to seep from every pore of his body, completely soaking his clothing and drenching the ground.

‘Thank god the floor is stone…’ Sam mused as he kept a tight leash on his mana being siphoned by the ritual.

The entire process lasted around ten minutes, during which a small pool of black sludge gathered around Adam’s feet.

Then Sam felt the siphoning cut off and let go of the mana, which caused the bands of illusionary runes to flash one last time with light before contracting and vanishing into Adam’s body.

Silence filled the room as Sam and Tim stared at Adam as he took his time getting out of the circle and changing his clothing after Sam hit him with a cleaning spell, completely removing the black substance from him.

Tim was the one who broke the silence. “Well, what did you get?”

Adam smiled and began to poke around his screens.

“Well, I lost Life of Blood and related skills and lost around a level.” Tim sucked in a breath in surprise. Losing a level at their station was horrible. “But I got around ten stat points, distributed and a skill.”

Sam was celebrating inside while keeping a calm smile on his face. “Oh, what skill?”

Adam made a motion and suddenly there was a skill window before Tim and Sam.

[Pure Blood: Level 0/100 (0%) (Passive) You have tempered your body and blood, purifying it from unwanted substances. This made you resistant to anything wanting to influence your blood without your approval and will grant you Blood Magic Resistance. Your pure blood affects your body, improving it by sustaining it. Increases STR, VIT, and END by 1% for every skill level. You can tap into this blood and showcase your purity. Grants you the Purity Strike skill!]

[Purity Strike: Level 0/100 (0%) (Active) Bring forth your purity and strike them with awe and your weapon (mostly with your weapon, fists are acceptable). Damage is increased by 2% for each level in Pure Blood. Extremely effective against impure existences. Inspires awe in those who are pure, bolstering their will and casts fear in the hearts of those who are impure!]

Sam let out a diabolical laugh while Tim let out a loud ‘Sweet!’ while Adam just looked satisfied.

‘I love it when a plan comes together… Those skills are hella hard to get if you’re not a paladin dedicated to one of the purity-obsessed gods!’

A few minutes later, they calmed down, and Tim finally looked excited. “Is it my turn now?”

Sam motioned toward the gunk on the floor and the burned-out ritual circle with a slight dusting of ash from the burned-up reagents.

“First, we need to clean this up and change the stone on the floor…”

Tim looked like someone had kicked his puppy but then let out a sigh and began walking toward the door leading to the storage area of the ritual room to retrieve some new stone slabs while Sam began to cast Clean spells at the floor vanishing ritual gunk in small doses.

Sam walked around the construction; walls starting to take shape with a few more buildings standing tall and proud, including the workshop and warehouse dedicated to Master Fitzgerald’s work. Thanks to Fitzgerald’s support from the nameless medieval man in black, the buildings looked like they had been there for years, with some guards patrolling the area, stone-faced.

‘Good. I hope we will get the gates soon…’ he mused. ‘Though I wonder why Lucrecia hasn’t greeted me yet… Maybe she is back with her parents?’

In the end, he decided that as long as she wasn’t bothering him, he didn’t really care what the capricious young woman was doing.

Instead, he headed for Lara’s office, where Dan, Isabella, Katie, and Clarissa were waiting for him.

Opening the door, he was instantly ambushed by Katie.

“Hey! I noticed you got the reward for that stupid event! Show me! Show me!”

Sam pushed the excitable girl away from him. “Katie, I sent pictures in the group chat…”

“Really?” She instantly backed away and began browsing the communication she could access from her pod.

Sam turned toward the others and nodded his head. Dan returned it, Lara and Isabella waved with a smile while Clarissa simply sniffed and turned her head away. Deciding to ignore that for now, he addressed the crowd, ignoring Katie in the background.

“Hey! That looks super cool!”

“Hello, everyone! Ready for some leveling?”

Lara raised an eyebrow. “Are you including me?”

Sam shrugged. “If you want to join, you’re welcome…”

Lara glanced at a grinning Dan, then down at the high stacks of paperwork, plans, designs, and other minutia, then shook her head. “Sadly, I will probably get more experience if I stay with the project…”

Dan pouted, but Sam just nodded. “Makes sense. Any other questions?”

His friends and teammates just shook their heads.

“Then say your tearful goodbyes, because we’re going hunting, team!” he declared loudly to the room.

“Hell yeah!” Katie began to celebrate by jumping around while Isabella simply did a fist pump. Dan was hugging Lara and Clarissa was doing an equipment check.

He waited until everybody was ready and headed for the door.

“Team Kickass, roll out!”

“Ugh, you and your ancient references…”

“You got it, didn’t you?”