Limitless Path

One other, quite pleasant, surprise popped up right at the very end, one Beth hadn't been expecting because they had been flying radio silent for a bit to make it a surprise. That was the other girls showing up, that being her sisters and Sabs and Neph, when they were only about two weeks out from finishing their referee duties. The others were all leaner, meaner, and more experienced than the last time they had seen them, especially Neph, who had bloomed greatly in her time away. Beth and Blood had left her with a bit of money, a couple mithril coins, and had already helped her through one rebirth, meaning she was set up quite well when she joined Kim and Soph and Sabs. It was almost a classic example of how a powerful family could really boost one's start, though the person still needed to walk their Path on their own two feet.

"It's good to see you," Beth said, giving everyone, including the recalcitrant Soph, a hug when the four girls showed up at their door.

"You feel…stronger," Kim said to Beth as they stepped inside.

"We've been training," Beth said with a shrug.

"Whoa, who's this?" Soph asked in surprise, just having noticed Kris and Bjorn.

"Part of the extended team, I guess," Beth said with a shrug.

"Damn, you're big, huh?" Kim said to Bjorn as they came around the couches, seeing the man sitting much higher than them even though he was in a low armchair.

"Titan blood," he grunted at them.

"What's that mean?" Kim asked.

"Titans and giants disappeared a while ago," Beth explained. "But there's some descendants still hanging around. Bjorn's one of them, which is why he's so damn tall but shows up as basically human to scans and skills."

"Woah, that's neat," Kim said.

"Hunh," Bjorn just grunted.

Neph, meanwhile, had bounced in and given everyone hugs before sitting down next to Kris and talking with her. Neph had been around the others before and she and Kris had shared alchemy pointers before they had all split up the last time. Neph continued right from where they left off last time, as if no time had passed, which put the very shy Kris at ease with many new people in the suite. Neph's bright and open personality was quite good at putting others at ease and making them feel comfortable, though it wasn't for everyone, if Bjorn's occasional grunts at the bubbly bee's comments were any indication.

"So, let's hear it," Beth said, looking at Kim.

"Hear what?" Kim asked.

"You've sent me some messages, but give us the story. What have you four been doing?" Beth asked.

"It's been a lot of fighting, which I'm sure you'd appreciate," Sabs explained. "We've been bouncing between places, following a route that one of the other instructors we bumped into gave us. It's a path to kill certain beasts, harvest materials, sell them at a beneficial place, and so on. It's given us a lot to do over the last couple years."

"I've had very little time to study," Soph said somewhat snootily. "I need to take some time to work on my spellcraft."

"You can use the gate," Beth said, gesturing over her shoulder where her gate rose up in a free zone in the main room. "Ten times accelerated time still, but you can study a hundred hours in ten in there."

"I'll take you up on that, thanks," Soph said. She had definitely matured over the years, even if she still was a bit of a brat sometimes.

"But what else?" Beth asked.

"Lots of dungeons," Kim took up the narrative. "We found a place that nobody even knew about on a fairly newly settled world and farmed the hell out of it. Got us some resources that we could farm for decent money. We're alright on cash, especially since Neph likes to pay for everything when she can get away with it."

"I have the money," the bee woman said with an impish grin. "Might as well spend it on my friends."

"It's a lot of money," Kim said seriously. "And it's money Blood gave you."

"It's fine, Kim," Beth said, taking out an orichalcum coin and flicking it to Neph. "We have plenty."

"The hell's that?" Kim asked.

"Orichalcum coin. Tier above Mithril," Beth replied.

"Good God," Kim said, rolling her eyes.

"Anyway, we still had some money, but I guess that's not a worry," Sabs said with a sigh. "We've all gone through our second and even third rebirths, so we're catching up, though we just did our thirds a little bit ago. Would be nice to use your gate for some free leveling."

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"We've been making serious use of it lately," Kris said quietly. "I'm sure Beth wouldn't mind."

"We have two weeks left and not much to do in those weeks," Beth said.

"Two weeks of work?" Kim asked to clarify.

"Yeah, we're almost done with our ref duty," Beth explained. "After that, we've got a few things we want to take care of, but we're going to be sticking around Earth for a bit yet. There's some things here we want to handle, including that stupid tower, so we won't be jetting off. If you want, I'll leave the gate open in the room a decent amount of time the next few weeks. We'll get you some keys from Tazeen or somebody. Actually, I think I can make you keys, right? I have access to basically all the systems."

"Need to be Gold to do that," Bjorn grunted. When everyone looked at him, he revealed a Gold Emblem and said, "Despite my looks, I know some things. If you want to be technical about this shit, you're considered provisional Hall workers as Silvers that are doing their ref work. You're not supposed to do the other stuff, even if you can tap into the systems. I'm not working at this Hall before you ask so, no, I can't make them keys either."

"Right, didn't know you were a Gold already," Beth said with a nod.

"Got it three years ago," Bjorn said. "Started before you guys and I'm a bit older."

"I'm fifty, objective time," Sera piped up.

"Never mind, I'm in the age range," Bjorn grumbled before making a drink appear.

"So, what else," Beth asked, leaning back and snuggling against Sera, the dragon squeezing her tight with one arm.

"Sabs is a Silver," Kim said, Sabs showing her Emblem. "She just got it, but the rest of us are working on it. We're all likely going to get Silvers but probably stop there; don't really see a point in going further. We're not into the whole space police force thing the CRA is doing."

"Still want a faction," Bjorn said.

When he didn't elaborate, Sera added, "Joining some kind of faction or clan or somebody is usually a good idea. Being a Silver at the CRA is good, but you might want to think about joining some other faction or group. Some of them don't ask for too much and provide you with a ton of resources and help."

"Any suggestions?" asked Sabs.

"Trading firm, workers guild, or maybe a mercenary company," Sera said. "Depends on what you want to do and how you want to do it."

"Don't like the idea of a merc company," Kim said with a frown.

"Yeah, maybe too gung-ho," Sabs agreed.

"Trading firm or a guild," Sera said with a shrug. "There's definitely other places, I should know, but those are going to be your two best bets."

"We really aren't crafters, even Soph," Kim said.

"Hey!" Soph exclaimed.

"It's not an insult, Soph, chill," said Kim and Soph settled down, tutting a little.

"Guilds need more than just crafters, though that's a big part," Sera explained. "They need guards, desk workers, admin, etc. They pay well, though a lot better if you're one of the crafters, and they're pretty solid and reliable. Otherwise, you're probably going to want to sign up to work for a trading firm, though they'll take as much of your time as they can and try to pay out as little as they can."

"Maybe a guild after all," Kim said. "We'll have to look into it. We have more free time right now as compared to the last few months, which have been very hectic."

"You stop and see the folks yet?" Beth asked.

"Yeah, we went there first. Spent a couple hours catching them up on some of the things we haven't said over the phone or whatnot," Kim said.

"Well, let's get you some keys, though we don't really have the room for everyone to stay here long-term together," Beth said.

"We'll see if we can grab the room next door for now," Kim said.

The two got up and left the suite, moving down to the counter to get some keys for Kim and the others. While they were down there, Kim booked up the large suite next to Beth's, which was rather too much money still for most people on Earth to want to book. Beth just smiled slightly as Kim wound up with a big pile of keys in each hand, having a pile for her suite with the other girls and a pile of extras for Beth's suite. She delivered the keys to the others, and they checked out their suite first before returning to Beth's where Beth's group was making their plans for that weekend.

"You're going out?" Kim asked.

"We've been exploring basically the, uh, Mississippi basin," Beth said. "I told you a little of that, but the area's great for us right now and we're going to be spending a lot of time there the next few months. We're going to be taking care of a few things there and then turning in some Gold missions for our efforts."

"Can you leave the gate up here in the meantime?" Kim asked.

"You want it set to the house or the beasts?" Beth asked.

"Wait, you didn't tell us about a house," Soph said.

"Yeah, I wasn't going to have you study in a grassy plain, if that's what you were thinking," Beth said. "I have an area that's like a house that I can open it up to."

"Cool," said Soph, a little bit more milquetoast reaction than Beth had expected.

"You want me to leave it on beasts, though?" Beth asked.

"Yes, please," Kim said. "Can you just make it goblins or something?"

"I'll do that," Beth said. "Level one-ten to start? You guys are fifty right now, so that shouldn't be too bad."

"Maybe do eighty," Kim said. "We aren't really on your level quite yet."

"Ah, right," Beth said, scratching her cheek as she made the gate disappear before making it reappear with the starting level set to eighty. "It's all set now. I'll leave it up for the next couple days. Just go in and fight whenever."

"Stuff gets higher level further out?" Sabs asked for confirmation.

"Yep," Beth replied with a nod.

With that sorted, at least for now, they were ready to move on. Kim's team, as Beth thought of it, went into the gate to start fighting right away, having had most of the day before and that day to rest. Beth's team was on standby, as it was Thursday afternoon, so they had little to do, especially with Beth's gate otherwise occupied. The next day was Friday, with Beth and the others having to work on ref duty for a double shift, John exploiting the fact they were done soon to drive them hard several times in the last couple weeks. After they were finished with the shift, they relaxed for an hour, not really needing any sleep with their immense stats. They cheated even further by walking into Beth's gate and setting down chairs, finding that the girls had cleared the area out and were out of visual range. Sitting there for an hour was just a couple minutes of objective time and then they were refreshed and ready.

Beth gathered her group up, having to track down Bjorn and Kris, both of whom were out in the Hall doing their own thing. Once they had everybody, they were in the airship and out for the weekend, exploring more of the sites for the next two days. Beth wanted to show Bjorn and Kris some of the other sites, including the site with the holy array that they still didn't really know too much about. The two weren't Enchanters nor did they have a particular proficiency in runes and were unable to offer much help with what it was or what it was doing. Bjorn commented on the wraith site that they might want to contact some people to take care of it. Clearing that place would be a big hassle for something that was really only moderately valuable; better to sell the location to somebody and have them deal with it. The CRA wouldn't handle it until it became a huge problem, but that also meant they weren't going to be picky about what Beth, or anybody else, did about it.

That weekend and the next weekend they showed Bjorn and Kris around the rest of the high-mana zone, with them offering a few bits of advice on how they should deal with some things. Beth left her gate open for several long stretches to allow the other girls to get some fast levels. They weren't on the kind of speed and preparedness levels that Beth and her team were, but they were able to grind out some pretty impressive levels over the next two weeks. At that point, Beth told them to handle their own leveling for just a bit, as she and her group were going to be mobile for a little and she wanted to have her gate power available. Kim and her group could do several dungeons in the area, including the ant dungeon that was still near their home neighborhood, to work on their levels and get some resources and money.

The biggest thing Beth wanted to focus on for now was getting the stuff in the area wrapped up enough that Tazeen would give them the mission credits for it. After that, they could focus on leveling and getting stronger for a while before getting enough Gold missions in that they were ready for their tests. Blood was airship certified and still studying for the starship license, but that was something that was going to take a little while yet. Apart from that, Beth and Sera had been working on their crafting and would need to really push that a bit so they could take advantage of the token that Mortaine had given them. Beth wanted to get most of their missions done for the requirements for Gold and then get their crafting up. After that, they'd work on getting their levels up and doing their eighth rebirth, though the leveling for that was going to take quite some time. The next couple months would be a bit frantic if they pushed as hard as Beth wanted, but it was so nice not having to clock in at work every day or have to plan all their other activities around their work as referees.