Separate Ways

--- Bear Paw Guild Hall

Jay was currently looking at the quests posted on the request board. He noticed that it was neatly arranged and classified according to difficulty. After a moment of thinking, Jay grabbed a quest called 'Cult Hunting.'

"A quest that has five stars. If I am not wrong, these stars show the difficulty of the quest, and I am guessing five stars means hard."

Jay quickly went towards the bar counter in the guild hall and handed the quest over to Jessica, who was actually the one in charge of managing the guild's request board.

"Wait, are you out of your mind?!! Don't tell me you want to do this quest alone?" Jessica said while she looked at Jay who had an innocent smile on his face.

"It's just a cult hunt, what could go wrong?" Jay asked and was also wondering if his Spirit Power got stronger due to the 201% Evil alignment of his Spirit Power.

"I forgot that you lived your entire life in a cave so far..." Jessica said softly and decided to explain things to Jay.

"The red stars on the paper where the quest is written shows the difficulty of it. It ranges from a single star up to a hundred stars. Five stars may not seem too much, but in truth is, a five star quest is already as hard as fighting an entire army on your own. And among all of the five star quests you chose, it had to be the hardest. Do you know how many people there are in a single cult?"

"No." Jay said and wondered why Jessica was getting a bit panicky.

"Thousands! And you want to do this quest by yourself, are you out of your mind?"

"Fine, fine. I will just ignore doing quests until I get stronger then." Jay said and started to wonder how he should increase his other alignments so that he could evolve his Spirit Power form.

"Do you know a fast way to promote peace?" Jay asked Jessica.

"I am not sure exactly, but I think there are a few ways. You can donate Rubies to the Holy Radiant Church or the army itself, helping out anyone in need, heal injured people or creatures, educating young people about how to promote peace, and whatever else you could think of."

"Does meditating while in front of a goddess statue work?" Jay asked since most of the things Jessica mentioned just felt weird if he was the one who did those stuff.

"It does work, but it is the slowest way since you aren't really promoting peace."

"What about killing evildoers?" Jay asked.

"I'm afraid not. No matter who or what you kill, it will just promote evil, chaos, or order. In my opinion, promoting peace is the hardest." Jessica said and sighed since she was also struggling to increase her Spirit Power by promoting peace.

"Wait... back at the outer ring, most of the people back there were starving. If I use Chicken Storm and sell, I mean give the chickens summoned to the people, will it work?" Jay wondered and a wide grin appeared on his face, creeping out Jessica who was in front of him.

"Umm... Jay?" Jessica was wondering what the hell did Jay think of for him to show off that creepy smile.

"By the way, do I get a free room somewhere at the back of the place?" Jay asked Jessica since it was getting pretty late and he wanted to do his 'master plan' during daytime.

"Nope. All of the rooms are already owned."

Jay decided to just lie down on one of the wooden benches, just like Vex, who was still sleeping peacefully without a care in the world.

"I should first check the situation inside the storage ring." Before Jay pretended to sleep since he was just going to the Mind Room, he first glanced at Cubsy who was sleeping peacefully on top of a table.

...

--- Mind Room

Jay quickly grabbed Toran, Ashara, and the little girl, out of the Storage Orb.

"Huh? Where am I?" The three of them had the exact same thought. But for some reason, the only thing they saw was a room painted with a jet black color. They did not see the large map, wooden desk, red book, tall bookshelf, status screen, or even the orbs.

"Lady Zena?" Toran and Ashara saw that Jay was in front of them. Of course, they still did not know about his real identity since Jay gave them an alias for his name.

"Who are you!? I demand you to release me!" The little girl immediately shouted as she stood up and stomped her right foot.

"Woah. I never knew the Mind Room functions this way." Jay thought to himself when he noticed that everything was suddenly painted in a jet black color. He knew that it was better this way so that no one else, besides him, Hellson, and the Chicken Lord, knew of the Mind Room's existence.

"First of all, let me reintroduce myself." Jay said as he transformed back to his normal form. A young man with an average body and black hair.

"Jay?!!"

Toran was the first to react and he suddenly got an ominous feeling.

"Toran, who is he?" Ashara asked.

"He is the human I brought to our plane, just a few days before its destruction. HOW THE HELL ARE YOU ALIVE?!!" Toran quickly said and shouted as he looked at Jay. He knew that Jay stood no chance against the Shurymites nor the invaders that came to the Shurym Plane.

"Huh? I thought I already showed you two that I can use blood magic." Jay said nonchalantly.

"How the hell..." Before Ashara could even ask, Jay shushed the two Shurymites.

"Look, there really isn't any bad blood between us. Besides, you should thank me for saving you two. If not for me, the two of you are already corpses back at the forest we were at earlier." Jay said and decided to ignore the two for now as he looked at the little girl, who was clearly infuriated for some reason.

"So, how the hell did you recover? When I took you in a while ago, you were on the verge of death, with a large wound on your back and head."

"Why should I tell you?" The little girl said.

"Well, if its not important then screw it. Who are you and where do you live?" Jay asked.

"Why should tell a man about who I am? Don't you think you are overstepping your boundaries? How did the three of you even arrive at our world?" The little girl asked as she sat down.

"We are at Bevelona City right now and I do not know if I can just release you or not? Who knows if the one who caused your wounds comes for you again?" Jay said and wondered why he was even worried for this little girl.

"What?! No, you must absolutely not reveal my presence to anyone here! Please!" The little girl quickly prostrated in front of Jay and begged.

"Why should I? You even haven't told me your name or anything about you."

The little girl went back to her sitting position and glared at Jay hatefully. She bit her lips and played with her red hair before speaking up.

"My name is Ruby. The last princess of the Scarlet Witches."

"Scarlet Witches?"

"A sacred order that follows the will of the Goddess of Chaos." Ruby said and hoped for the best that Jay wouldn't do something stupid.

"I see."

Jay did not know what he should do with Ruby so he stored her back at the Storage Orb.

"Huh? What... NO!!!" Ruby did not know what happened as she suddenly vanished.

"Alright. As for you two, I just need some answers about blood magic before I release you." Jay said as he looked at Toran and Ashara, who were waiting patiently.

Jay started to look for something in the Mind Room and grabbed an ice jug that contained the blood of Balkor, one of the Shurymite Lords he fought with before.

"If I drink this, will I become a practitioner of Sacred Blood Magic instantly or not?" Jay asked and wondered if their answer is the same with Skully.

"Of course not! Your body will immediately burn into ash if you do so." Ashara said and when she inspected the blood, she suddenly frowned and looked at Jay hatefully.

"Whose blood is this?"

"Dunno. A random Shurymite Lord got ravaged by some wolves. After the wolves left, I stored some of the blood that remained on the corpse." Jay said and decided to not tell about how he killed two Shurymite Lords on his own.

"Last question. I have a large red book with a red skull floating above it. Do you know anything about it?" Jay asked since he was still wondering about Skully's origin and the red book.

"Red skull?!!"

Toran and Ashara shuddered as they thought of something. It was the messenger of the War God, Shurym. But how did Jay know about it? As for the red book, they thought it was just a random book Jay found at the archives.

"The red skull is a sentient being created by the War God to serve as his messenger." Toran said.

"I see. We are currently at Bevelona City right now. Do you want me to release you guys or do you need to put on a disguise first? Since I revealed my identity to the both of you, I suppose you want to go in separate ways."

"We would want to use a disguise, but we cannot use blood magic, just like you said back at the village." Ashara said and looked at Jay, hoping that he would give them something to use.

"Are you sure? Go ahead and try if it works or not." Jay told them and wondered if the two could also use blood magic in the mind room, just like him.

Toran was the first one who tried and for some reason, it worked! He immediately turned into a middle aged man with long white hair and a muscular body.

"What the..."

When Ashara saw Toran's transformation, she also tried using her blood magic and even attempted to attack Jay. But for some reason, none of her attacks worked but she still transformed into an adult female with a curvy body and short black hair.

Jay nodded at the two and decided to release the two first before he starts to mind his own business.

"I feel like the mind room has hundreds of functions that I have yet to discover." Jay thought to himself before leaving the Mind Room.

...

--- Inner Ring, Bevelona City

Just outside of the Bear Paw Tavern, Jay released Toran and Ashara.

"Good luck to the both of you. And Toran, if you still plan to go to that 'Sacred Mountain,' best of luck to you." Jay said as he bid farewell to the two, who were mystified with what just happened and how they got teleported here.

...

After returning to the guild hall, Jay decided to sleep to rest his mind and body for the meantime, to prepare for a long day tomorrow.

"I wonder how everyone else is doing. Nuggets, Chicken Lord, Roasted Boar, and everyone else, I hope all of you are still doing well." Jay thought to himself as he lied down on the wooden bench and closed his eyes.

...

--- Southern Desolate, Fatelord Plane

On a place called Withering Plains, where the ground was dried and cracked up, a bloody stench filled the air.

Thousands of dismembered and burnt bodies of Darkkonians littered the place. As for the Darkkonians who were alive, they all fled for their lives while thousands of lightning bolts rained down on them.

While that was happening, a large and majestic golden phoenix flew across the skies, and wherever it goes, the rain of lightning goes.

...

"Nuggets, you seem to be more aggressive lately. What's up with you?" Roasted Boar, who was wearing an azure colored robe was currently riding on top of Nuggets, who was currently in her Thunderhawk Phoenix form.

"What do you mean big bro? I am just doing cleaning up the mess here." Nuggets said cheerfully while she kept sending lightning bolts towards the Darkkonians.

"I wonder how Jay is doing." Roasted Boar said softly while he looked at the Darkkonians with pity. He was even bewildered by how strong Nuggets is right now. Besides Nuggets, almost everyone in the Golden Phoenix kingdom was already at the 9th tier of their respective classes. The core members, they were already Divine Beings. As for him and Nuggets, they already surpassed the limits and became Fatelords due to Stromm and Izumi's guidance. And all of this was possible thanks to the Chicken Lord.