"My apology, we didn't know you had a regulation against void travel into the city. We did stop here at the gate in case you had an entry fee though." Cain offers an apology, causing the Guard to stop in confusion.
Awakened Transfers have a wide variety of abilities, and if he had never been here before it is only reasonable that he wouldn't know. There isn't currently a line at the Gate, and they did stop next to the guard station for inspection, or at least that is what they claim. Really, he only has an issue because they appeared inside the city, and that is a security risk.
"I will let you off with a warning this time, but know that almost all cities have a rule against crossing the city walls before checking in. Whether you fly, run, or whatever you did that sent you through the void. But there is no entry fee for the city. You are free to enter, but we will be keeping an eye on you." The guard agrees, not seeing a good reason to work harder than necessary.
This city has very few demons for some reason, though Cain had heard that most of the cities were founded and filled with demons. Instead, the population seems to be Youkai and Beastkin. That's a relief to Cain, he needs more of both recorded for his abilities, both to try for a Youkai Companion and to upgrade Nemu, who is very close to upgrading.
[Let's wander around, I want to record as many new forms as possible.] Cain sends the mental direction to his Companions, and Moana moves to sit on the opposite shoulder from Laura, hungrily eyeing her snacks.
"Since you're new, I will share." Laura agrees reluctantly, handing the Leviathan a piece of hard candy.
"They make food from sugar? This new world is interesting. I thought it would be condensed bone marrow or perhaps a smoked meat item." The tiny Leviathan mumbles around a piece of candy a third the size of her head.
Her analysis makes Laura instantly like her even more. Not because they share tastes in snacks, but because they don't. Laura loves roast meat but has an immense sweet tooth. If the Leviathan doesn't that means she isn't going to compete for the rare snacks and will help the dragon hunt for tasty-looking meat animals.
They have almost completed a loop of the first market near the gates when Nemu starts looking dizzy and finds a porch to sit down on.
"What's up? Did you get hit with a hidden spell effect?" Cain asks quietly, in case he is right and the perpetrator is still watching.
"No, I am advancing. You finally collected enough forms to raise my quality." She whispers back.
It's too late to do anything about it but merge with her, and that might attract even more attention. A handful of beastkin shoppers have been drawn over by the aura of Nemu's advancement, staring in awe as her presence increases from Ancient to Mythic, while her base quality reaches Legendary.
"Oh, that's neat. She's just going straight to true Mythic." Moana claps happily, flying around the resting Felian.
"I've been wondering this for a while, but what is the difference between Mythic Quality and Mythic Awakened? All the stats look the same to me." Cain asks his newest follower, who has brought a wealth of knowledge with her.
"The quality denotes their modifiers. Have you noticed that your Mythic Quality granted you ten times the HP and Mana as the regular awakened around you, and how much harder it is to kill Mythic beasts compared to Mythic awakened? That's the difference. It is small at Mythic, with not much extra effort needed to overcome the change. But a true Spirit Beast has a hundred times the modifiers of a Mythic one, and a true Immortal has a hundred times that. After Mythic, the merely awakened might as well be pretenders, relying on a single skill and a buff to play like they are adults." Moana explains and the Echoes, who are listening in to everyone's thoughts from the farm exchange an angry glance with each other.
They were so proud of killing those awakened Immortal Crazed, but a proper Immortal Beast would have one thousand times as much health and mana? How could they hold their heads high with such a puny accomplishment? They silently resolve not to tell anyone else about that outing, to avoid embarrassing themselves in the future. Instead, they set the goal of overcoming a Spirit Beast solo. With the new abilities available to them, they will be able to come up with the firepower using summons, so it might be possible already with a little strategy.
Sure, they each have half the stats of the original, but they also get the bonuses from his gear, so they aren't all that inferior in raw numbers, and who could say that they were anything but his equals if they had greater accomplishments than him? That's the motivating force behind almost everything they do, including their efforts to perfect these Mythic fruit trees.
"Is there anything else I should know about the changes above Mythic?" Cain asks while they are on the topic, and Nemu's body is still adapting to her change in Quality.
"Immortal is such a wide rank that it is split into ten portions to give a better estimation of the power level of those within it. The ranks above were the same when I was alive last time, but I can't guarantee that the System still categorizes everything the same. You haven't seen any true Immortals, so I don't have enough data to actually verify my reasoning."
Vala smiles at her facts-based mannerisms. "I think you would get along well with Svetlana. She's one of Cain's Commanders, created by his Puppet Master Class abilities, and she loves data."
"Math is an essential truth of the world. People lie and evade, but numbers either add up or they don't." Moana agrees, eager to meet all her new peers.
"We can meet up with them in a few weeks when we go back to check on Misha and make sure her pregnancy is going smoothly. I've got puppets and Guild members watching her at all times, along with the clones of the Companions, but it's better to see things with my own eyes than looking through others' memories."
Their conversation is cut off as Nemu's transformation finishes. Unlike when the others reached Mythic Quality, she looks exactly the same, and it isn't until Cain inspects her that he can see the change. Nemu's class has changed to Siren, and she has gained compulsion bonuses for her singing abilities, as well as improved versions of all her buff and debuff abilities.
Nemu stretches out, letting the feeling of power flow through her body, no longer so envious of Vala who has gotten to enjoy this for so much longer. There is a small girl singing as she skips down the road, oblivious to the spectacle that drew the attention of all the adults and Nemu calls out to her in a gentle and lyrical voice.
"Little Fox, won't you come to sing and dance with me?" Nemu calls and the girl's face turns overjoyed, her long fluffy tipped white ears flicking as she runs over. Cain can see her eyes are a little vacant, Nemu's voice compelled her, but even after she arrives she doesn't calm down much.
"Do you know [The Ballad of Maggie Jane]? I love that song." The little girl asks, and the locals all laugh. The ballad is a drinking song about a jilted lover, best known as a bar song among the more seedy taverns, due to its bawdy language.
"But of course I do. What bard doesn't know the classics. Do you want to sing with me, or dance?" Nemu asks.
"You sing, I will dance!" The fox-eared Youkai laughs, giving a twirl that makes her patched skirts flip up off the muddy stones of the road.
The road through town should be stone, but lack of cleaning has caused a layer of muddy soil washed off of wagons and from the surrounding green areas to slowly cover it. Neither of them seems to care, as they launch into the tune, amused shoppers joining in on the song and dance, entranced by the voice of the Felian Bard's song.
"That's impressive, she's got over a hundred people in a light trance with just a song, she isn't even using an ability. Any tavern owner would kill to have her on staff." Vala whispers before being pulled into the dance by Nemu's fluffy partner in crime.
The song ends and everyone cheers and tosses silver coins at the duo, thinking that they are street performers. In a way, Cain supposes that they are today.
The Youkai girl, who is either very poor or one of the local street urchins, collects all the coins and then carefully splits them in half. "You sing I dance, that's fifty-fifty, right?" She asks hopefully, holding out one of the handfuls of coins.
"That sounds right to me. Good work little one. I will see you again one day when we come to visit again." Nemu tells her, taking half of the coins and petting the fluffy ears before the girl runs away.
"Now we have local coins to donate to the needy, or buy candy." Nemu winks, giddy with the success of her latest advancement. In fact, it was so effective that the crowd has entirely forgotten about it, and is only talking about the song.
"Now, let's see what we can find out about the Librarian elf. Vala, you can go with Nemu, I will go with whoever is riding on me, and we will meet back up here in two hours." Cain suggests.
Moana, splits up, one clone going with each group, while Laura moves from Cain's shoulder to his pocket. It's more comfortable for a day-long excursion, and until they get close to the food stalls or that magical item shop again, there isn't much for her to do.
Then she has an epiphany. There were multiple bookstores in town. If she checks all of those while Cain checks with the local Quest Hall they should both be done at the same time, since the bookstores won't have a lineup. Conveniently, the path from the bookstores to Quest Hall runs right through the farmer's market.
Cain smirks at her transparent logic and motions for her to go even before she can voice her idea out loud. He doesn't usually listen in on their thoughts, because all the voices will give him a headache, but lately the problem doesn't seem to be as bad, with only the more exciting moments overwhelming the background track of his thoughts.
