65. Escape

Cerone seized the initiative. "If you destroy this city you will make it much harder for me to get stronger and survive. Leaving this continent is my best chance to get stronger." She urged the creature to agree with her. 

It looked at her for a second. Something she had said made it pause in its thoughts. It mumbled to itself. Alyssa strained her blessing to hear what it said but couldn't make it out. It looked up and then back to Cerone. "How long do you need to leave? We can postpone our plans, but a prior agreement prevents us from leaving the city alone indefinitely." I looked at Cerone seriously.

Cerone looked to her two closest friends. Rys counted on his hands. "If we can get an in with the manager I think we could do it in two years." Rys estimated. 

Cerone looked back to the fungal brood mind. "We need at least two years. Is that acceptable?" 

It hummed to itself again. "Your terms are acceptable. We will contact you in the future when the time for payment has come." It turned once more and continued to walk away. 

Cerone sighed but tensed up again. 'What is it going to make me do?' "Wait! What are you going to ask me to do?" Cerone shouted. The creature looked back at Cerone and only a crappy imitation of a smile answered Cerone before the fungal brood mind disappeared into the tunnels. The rats that managed to survive scurried after it. 

Once they were certain that the fungal brood mind had left they collapsed onto the ground. The fungal brood mind was dealt with for now, but at an unknown cost. Alyssa sat down next to Rys and Cerone. "Cerone what the hell did you do to convince that thing to leave us alone." Alyssa asked with concern.

Cerone grabbed her knees and hugged them close to herself. The memories of Baloth being invaded by that fungus worried her. "I'm not sure. All I know is I have this now." Cerone showed Rys and Alyssa the injury from before that now had a complex matrix of fungal roots sealing it up. They pulsed from time to time. 

Rys shrieked in fear. "You got infected! We need to cut the arm off." Rys started to rummage around for something to cut the arm. Cerone stopped him though. "Rys, I think its too late for that. While I'm not sure what it does, I can feel that the roots have reached deep inside of my body. Strangely though, it doesn't hurt, it feels empowering. I feel stronger than normal." Cerone tried to ease Rys. Her words only served to make him more concerned. He used his blessing to look into Cerone. He could feel how deeply the fungus penetrated into her body. He sighed looking to Alyssa. 

Alyssa put a hand on Cerone's shoulder. "Hey check your status out. Maybe there is something on there." Alyssa asked. Cerone nodded her head and opened up her status. 

At first glance she just thought she had gained a level, but looking into the number her status had increased far more than normal. Alyssa spotted the abnormality though. "Guys look at her race." She exclaimed. 

Cerone's race was no longer human. Instead, it now read human fungal hybrid (canidate infant). The three of them looked to each other. The same thought on their mind. 'Canidate?' Immediately they looked to Rys. He shook his head though. 

"I may work with plants a lot, but I still only know barely anything about the plant life of Echon. I barely even looked at fungus. I have no clue what this is about." Rys responded. 

At this point they had gained their bearings. They stood up preparing to leave the sewers again. Rys paused though. "Hey we probably need some kind of evidence that the fungal brood mind is dead or gone. Especially because everyone is dead." As he spoke he carefully collected the remains of the kind old wizard. Alyssa and Cerone nodded to each other and began to walk to where the fungal brood mind had inserted itself into Baloth. Looking around on the ground they found a few scraps of Drake's armor which they quickly took as a testament to his death. In the center of the drying blood pool, they found a sphere covered in fungus. 

Rys picked it up. "I think this is what it was attached to before it moved to Baloth." Rys shuddered at the memory. "Considering these things haven't appeared in such a long time I think this will do." Rys shrugged. 

Cerone looked at the orb. "Yeah and I think the manager will certainly send someone to examine the sewers after us. We will just lie about being the only survivors. I doubt that flaming man will survive." Cerone took the orb and looked in the direction that the man had fled, before shaking her head and the group moved to leave. 

The return to the surface was uneventful. They once again made it to the managers mansion. This time the gate guard was much more receptive of them. Gorsen took them to managers office without question. 

Once the door behind them closed, the manager quickly looked at them. "Where's the rest of them? It didn't fail did it?" He spoke with panic. His body shrunk and grew at a rapid rate as he bounced in his seat. Alyssa and Rys looked at Cerone. She took a short step forward. "The fungal brood mind was defeated. This sphere served as its core and it serves as a trophy. We were the only ones able to survive. Baloth made a heroic sacrifice in the end to finish it off after a lengthy battle." Cerone lied. The three of them had agreed to give as little details as possible and to state that Baloth had finished it off due to her being the strongest. 

The manager looked at the orb with curiosity. He stepped forward and looked at it. He then looked back to the group. "That is unfortunate they died. Baloth was always quick to temper and a nuisance, but she was still damn good at what she did. I will be sure to compensate their families." He then took the orb and placed it on his desk. Sitting back down he looked far more relaxed now. "Worry not, Gorsen has your payment as well. You three are deceptively good at surviving. Most I know at your levels would had died down there many times over. I will remember you three next time I have some specialty work. Now I believe you three will most likely need some rest." The manager spoke. He moved his hand in a brushing motion, signaling it was time for them to leave. 

The trio left. True to his words Gorsen gave them a hefty payment of 300 gold coins. As dangerous as this event had been and the sacrifices that Cerone had made it was definitely worth it. They slogged back to the warehouse, greeting the couple inside before collapsing in their rooms. Each of them worried for different reasons. Cerone was concerned about the consequences of what she agreed to, Alyssa worried about their new time constraints and Cerone, and Rys was most concerned about city after they left. 

Once Cerone was certain that Alyssa and Rys were completely asleep she opened her status once again and looked at her race while stroking her arm. Every pulse changed her feelings about it. Sometimes it brought her comfort as it saved her and her friends, sometimes it made her fear it. Multiple times she reached for the sword at her side, debating if she should cut it off. It did make her more powerful though, a power she would need to take her revenge. Sighing and rolling over Cerone tried to get some sleep. 

Back with Castus and Shi

Both Castus and Shi had been fighting nonstop. They took shifts to maximize their time. With Choceny healing their injuries whenever they got too hurt, they were able to fight for as long as they mentally were able to. Food was delivered to them daily. At first, they were excited by the prospect of leveling up and becoming stronger, but that was quickly replaced by the agonizing pain and strains of constantly fighting to the death. Every time they stepped out of the arena to take a rest and swap positions, Choceny would give them advice on their fighting styles. It had only been a few weeks, but they had already developed better strategies and had improved from simply attacking to now analyzing their opponents and striking at weaknesses. 

The beginning had been rough for Castus especially. Unlike Shi he wasn't able to learn offensive skills to support a reckless attack. He only had his tools to support him in the arena. In the beginning the gun he had was able to quickly dispatch some enemies, but it quickly became obsolete. On the fifth fight the shot hit the beast he faced, but it did too little damage. After Castus failed Choceny revealed why. While the gun had excellent penetrating power, it lacked the mass needed to severely damage opponents. 

Using that advice Castus modified the gun to fire a larger projectile. It increased the weight of the gun by a decent margin, which impacted how fast he could move. This caused he next loss in the arena. To compensate he swapped the spear out for a large shield he could use to block blows. He made it farther next time and then failed when he wasn't able to block the blows of a large rhinoceros like creature. Like this he would adapt, fail, adapt, fail and so on. Over time he started to build up a decent library of weapons and blueprints that made changing the style of combat that he used in a fight much easier. 

On Shi's side she had taken up combat much better than Castus, being able to fight longer and stronger opponents than himself. She had also managed to level up to nineteen in the mean time. Choceny had provided some more information about levels with some prodding from Castus and Shi. Levels were divided up into brackets. Every time one finished a bracket, they would receive some form of evolution as well as the following levels in a bracket requiring far more fighting and stronger opponents to level up more. The brackets were separated by sets of twenty. One through nineteen was the first, then twenty through thirty nine and so on. 

Shi was preparing to reach level twenty where she would receive another evolution. Since she had already evolved once Fulsin was going to come down to assist her in what he called a duplicate evolution. It was incredibly rare that someone would fall in levels below the evolution threshold and Fulsin claimed that by going through the barrier twice Shi would be able to gain tremendous power. Though Shi constantly complained that her skills and blessing felt different from before they were in the umbral. It seems she lost more than just levels in that hell hole. 

Castus woke up once again to Shi stirring him. It was his turn to fight again. Groaning he stood to his feet and walked somberly into the ring. The barrier raised up around him. He was now level twelve, but he barely noticed the differences in his status compared to the ever-stronger opponents he always faced. Not to mention his fights were always more drawn out than Shi's. Even with larger weapons he still struggled to deal significant damage without the physical status to support it. He had debated making a cannon to use, but the mana requirement was far too high for him currently. Castus sighed and watched the barrier envelop the arena once more.