Ember's head pounded as he dropped his fourth meteor of the day. He clutched his head as pain wracked his brain, something very similar to a severe migraine. He panted as the meteor slammed into the lake, close enough for the water to splash up to their knees.

  "It's worse than I thought. The meteors take a lot of ichor, and on top of that, because of the strength behind them, your mental is zapped almost immediately."

  Ember plopped into the wet beach, putting his head between his knees as Chris continued to talk.

  "You also don't have any control over where it goes, just the general location. It seems that no matter how we try to adjust it, three hundred feet is the requirement." He shook his head. "Unless we find a very large cave area, or we're lucky enough to be put in a dungeon that's in the open air, you're going to be pretty much useless when it comes to your special ability."

  Ember didn't say anything, his mind calming and the headache slowly subsiding. His arm had tiny bits of frost speckled across it from using his ability so much.

  It had been almost three hours since they started. Ember was able to quickly drop the next meteor; however, it took him almost an hour and a half to have enough mental capacity to drop a third. Every time, his brain hurt more and more. With this last one, he actually bled a little bit out of his nose.

  Chris sighed. "So it's more of a last resort kind of situation."

  "Is there a way to maybe improve it over time?" Ember asked as he stood groggily.

  "Of course. Something like what you have could easily be adapted over time. I'm not exactly sure how, but you'd probably be able to control the size, maybe the speed of the meteor, maybe how much it weighs. There are a lot of variables when it comes to that ability. And also, most weapons that are pseudo-legendary or above have the ability to drastically change abilities or have more than one."

  Chris rubbed his chin. "But for now, we'll have to work on your overflow. That's what will have to carry you throughout your fights. You have been working on it, right?"

  Chris helped Ember onto his horse as he leaned his forehead against the horse's neck. It neighed softly.

  "I've done a little bit of training, but I've mostly kept overflow training to a minimum. All I've been trying to do is work on controlling the outpour that comes from the sword."

  Ember turned his gaze to Chris, who was hopping on his own horse.

  "It's a good idea. If you can control your ichor, then you'll be able to control your overflow. Ultimately, you want to be able to hold your overflow for as long as possible during a fight, because the longer you have your overflow active, the stronger you are."

  Chris headed off the beach toward the beaten path, and Ember followed, sword clinking at his side.

  "What do you mean by that?"

  "Well, think of it like this. The longer you're in an overflow state, the more the ichor will compound around your body, so the stronger you'll get. In overflow fights, the longer one can hold the overflow, is usually the one who wins. Obviously, there are exceptions to every rule, but I doubt either of us is one.”

  Ember let that sit for a moment. Every time I learn more about the ichor system, the more and more technical and varied it becomes. Will I ever really know the limits?

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  He didn’t voice these concerns, instead shifting his focus to more immediate questions. "So, what now? Do we head back and do more quests?"

  Chris scratched his head. "Yeah, I guess that'll have to be what we're gonna do. We don't have enough money to buy gear for a dungeon run yet, so we'll have to keep doing a few more quests to rack up enough money. We'll need about five gold to provide enough equipment for just the two of us."

  Five gold. We aren’t far off. “So what’s a dungeon exactly?” Ember imagined something similar to video game dungeons, but wanted clarification.

  "Good question." Chris leaned back in his saddle. "That's what I spent the last couple of days looking into. Information is scarce for outsiders. As far as I can tell, they’re like trials. There are a couple of recurring dungeons around the sub-city that we can tackle. The only question is, can we do it by ourselves? The lady at the front desk in the guild hall told us that we couldn't accept combat quests without three people. The question I still don’t have an answer to is if dungeons apply the same way.”

  Ember frowned. "Is that really a problem? We could just recruit Boulder, couldn't we?"

  Chris shook his head. "Boulder's going to be expecting compensation for a dungeon run, but what I have in mind is not a full dungeon run. It's just for the two of us to get familiar with how dungeons work. I've never been in one myself, so I don't actually know what it's like inside or what we're going to have to face. I talked to Boulder about it a little bit — he said he's done some runs before, but they tend not to be very profitable because you have to reach the end of the dungeon to actually make any money, especially with recurring dungeons."

  Ember wanted to ask more questions, but at the same time, his head hurt so much, he decided just to lie on his horse. Way too much information all at once.

  When they returned to the guild hall, Ember immediately went to bed, hoping that his migraine would fade with time.

  When he awoke, thankfully, it was gone. It was still light out when he headed down to the main guild hall, not really sure what he was going to do. All he knew was that lying in bed all day was significantly less interesting without a phone to pass the time with.

  The hall was busy as usual, Chris nowhere in sight. Ember looked towards the garden, tempted to bask in the tranquility, but decided against it. He had too much he needed to catch up on.

  With nothing better to do, he headed to the training hall. It had been a couple of weeks since he arrived in this world, and despite the fact that his only real weapon was a sword, he was pretty bad at sword fighting. So far, he'd only been carried by his reaction speed, which he had honed over the years, but if he wanted to live, Ember knew he had to keep training.

  The hall was packed as usual, and Ember went over to a secluded spot in the corner of the room and started going through some of the motions Chris had taught him on the way to the sub-city.

  As he was going about his stretching and preliminary motions, he heard a voice not too far away.

  "Oi, oi, if it isn't Scarface," the voice mocked.

  Ember turned to the insulter. The man walked up with a group of rough-looking men behind him. He had a tall, lean build, casual clothes, spiky brown hair, and a predatory gleam in his gaze. His nose was sharp and pointy, almost like a bird's.

  The man grinned. "What's a commoner doing in the guild hall training room?"

  Ember took a step back, already sensing the hostility. "I've seen enough anime to know where this is going. I don't want any problems," Ember said, holding his hands out. "I'm just here to train."

  The lead man looked at his men with a condescending gaze. "He doesn't want any trouble," the man mocked. "Don't you know that commoners aren't allowed in here? You haven't even become a fundamentalist yet. What makes you think you can train with the rest of us? Just because your buddy is a transitional doesn't mean you can do whatever you want."

  "I didn't know it was a problem. I just assumed it was open for everybody."

  "Oh, you assumed?" The man leaned into Ember's face, a sneer on his lips. "Are you just going to assume that a monster is not going to chop your head off because you think you're bigger than you actually are?"

  Ember frowned. He'd already fought a goblin and killed it. This guy wasn't really that intimidating. But he could also tell this man was clearly significantly stronger than him.

  "If it's such a problem, I'll leave and go somewhere else."

  The man scoffed. "You think you could just leave? Do you not know where you are? You're in the frontier." He looked at his men like Ember was an idiot. "You have to take what you want. And if you can't take it, then you're going to lose it."

  He smiled. "Now, why don't we discuss that little sword of yours?"