No! I don't want to be a Super Necromancer!

The golden clouds beneath their feet shifted gently, creating a soft, glowing landscape beneath the gathered cultivators. The atmosphere felt unnaturally still, yet it thrummed with the low, omnipresent hum of divine fate, like a storm gathering at the edge of reality.

Above them, the spinning celestial gears glinted with power, marking the center of the inheritance realm, the final convergence.

Damien stood silently with the other drow near one of the floating pillars, his arms folded, his presence calm but unmistakably heavy.

The drow had gathered into a tight formation, thirty in total, all bearing the marks of their brutal trial through the staircase. They were leaner now, sharper, their arrogance replaced with tempered focus. Their numbers were the smallest of all the gathered factions, and that fact had not gone unnoticed.

All around them, other groups arrived in waves, bright flashes of teleportation light, celestial beams, or cracks in the air itself. The newcomers landed in organized units, clustered beneath banners bearing the crests of their respective sects. Murmurs passed through the crowd like wildfire.

"The Celestial Blaze Sect came in seventy strong."

"And the Beast King Pavilion looks like they brought an army."

"The Silver Lotus Court's aura is terrifying. Look at that girl, do you feel that frost? It's seeping into my spine!"

One cultivator, a short, round-faced youth with two oversized gourds strapped to his back, wandered casually between groups, greeting people with cheerful enthusiasm. His robes were stained with sauce from some roasted meat he had clearly snuck in, and his mouth was already chewing when he bounced over to Damien's group with the wide-eyed excitement of a child in a treasure vault.

"Hey, hey, hey, you're the drow crew, right? The ones from the desolate corner of the Galaxy? The corrupted elves who serves the Darkness Sovereign himself?" He waved his meat skewer toward Nyxara before shifting quickly to Damien. "And you, oh, ho ho ho! You're actually human being! How did you find yourself included in the drow group? Are you a mixed blood? Half drow half human? But which drow would want to taint themselves with a human? Interesting! You're interesting!"

Damien blinked once. The fatty's words were insulting, but strangely Damien didn't feel insulted at all.

He was just too nosy and too talkative to seem like he was insulting Damien.

"Who are you?"

"Me?" The fatty thumped his chest proudly. "Call me Guo Zhi! I'm a scholar from the Wandering Plum Sect. Only twenty-seven of us passed through our trial, so we're even more pitiful than you all. Don't worry though, I'm famous for two things, being hard to kill and knowing absolutely everything. And also, I'm single."

He winked flamboyantly at Lyrisa, who offered him a raised eyebrow and a half-smile.

"Are you always like this?" she asked quietly.

"Only when awake," Guo Zhi replied, misreading the tone entirely. "And speaking of you, little fox, if the inheritance doesn't work out, I've got a lovely bamboo hut and a warm bed back in the north. It fits two, or three if you're flexible—"

Vathrian's scowl deepened into a sneer, but Lyrisa just gave Damien's arm a light squeeze and leaned in conspiratorially. "I think he's hitting on me, dear. What are you going to do about it?"

"Hmmmm. I wonder if he tastes good." Damien casually took out his Spear of Eternal Storm and did a skewering motion towards the Fatty.

Guo Zhi's eyes bulged at the sight of such a wondrous treasure.

"Tha-That… What grade is that spear? How did you get such a treasure?" He stuttered.

Even the other drow also widened their eyes in shock.

To think the miserable human still had a powerful weapon hidden!

"This old thing? This is a skewering spear I use to roast my food and those who dares to lust after my woman." Damien poked the tip of the spear to Fatty's bulging tummy.

"Ahahaha! Yes, yes of course." He leapt backwards hastily. "I meant, I have a wonderful hut for the two of you to share when you are on holiday. Contact me anytime!"

"Enough nonsense." Nyxara said softly and tossed him a strange looking coin. "Give us you information."

Guo Zhi cleared his throat grandly as the coin disappeared into the folds of his clothes like magic. "Now, as promised, I come bearing information! Want to know who to avoid, who to mock, and who will probably try to kill you the moment the trial begins?"

Nyxara said nothing, but the faint tilt of her head indicated permission.

"Excellent!" Guo Zhi unhooked one of the gourds from his back, took a swig, and wiped his mouth. "First off, the Celestial Blaze Sect. Seventy members, all fire-path specialists. Their leader is Wu Jinhai, a guy so hot-headed that he once burned his own master's library down during meditation. Tragic, but true. He's also got a divine fire seed in his core, so if he so much as sneezes in your direction, duck."

"Charming." Lyrisa muttered.

"Then there's the Silver Lotus Court. Ice, poison, and beauty. Their top prodigy is Yan Qinglan. She smiles like a saint and kills like a plague. Rumor has it, she once froze a lake of soul spirits and turned it into a tea set. Do not let her offer you anything. Even compliments."

Thalvia blinked. "Frozen soul tea?"

"Exquisite craftsmanship," Guo Zhi said solemnly. "And horrifying death."

He turned and gestured dramatically toward the far side of the realm, where beast-like roars could be heard echoing from within a cluster of golden cloud spires.

"Beast King Pavilion, those guys are something else. Eighty of them, all walking animal hybrids. Their leader is Jin Tu, half-tiger, half-mountain, and possibly half-idiot. But don't let that fool you. He can tear a rhino in half with his bare hands, and that was before he awakened his bloodline."

Guo Zhi leaned in. "I once saw him eat a steel boar. Raw. Whole. Then he tried to flirt with a phoenix. Didn't go well."

Lyrisa blinked. "How badly?"

"Let's just say, feathers don't grow back where he got burned."

Even Damien couldn't hide the ghost of a smirk.

"Heavenly Rune Empire," Guo Zhi continued, pulling a scroll from his sleeve. "Fifty members. All inscriber-path cultivators. Their leader, Lu Shenyi, can turn words into explosions. Literally. He once carved a rune that said silence onto a battlefield, and the sound vanished for ten miles. He's probably already inscribed half his bones with spells, so don't let him talk too much. Or breathe near you."

"Who else?" Nyxara finally asked.

"Ah! Twilight Blade Sect. Fifty-five of them. Fast. Silent. Arrogant. If you blink, they're behind you. If you sneeze, you're dead. Their leader is Lan Yuefeng, flawless swordplay, no sense of humor."

"Hmmm. And?" Vathrian demanded impatiently.

Guo Zhi grinned and held up a hand. "Last but most terrifying, the Soulweavers of the West. Sixty members. Spirit-path users. They'll kill you, possess you, and then walk around wearing your face. Their matriarch, Wu Yinshi, doesn't speak. She lets her soul puppets do the talking. Rumor is, she has seven extra lives."

"Great," Damien muttered. "So we're surrounded by pyromaniacs, poison goddesses, beast-men, rune lunatics, silent swordsmen, and soul thieves."

Guo Zhi beamed. "Exactly! It's going to be fun."

The air shifted suddenly.

The celestial gears above their heads began to rotate faster, glowing brighter. The golden clouds swirled, parting to reveal a vast golden platform in the center of the realm. From it, pillars of fate energy burst upward into the sky, forming a lattice of flowing light and symbols.

An enormous figure appeared in the sky. A projection—not real, but real enough.

It was JerAxle's image.

And when he spoke, the sky trembled.

"Children of fate. Seekers of legacy. Welcome to the Trial of Plundered Luck."

The clouds went still.