A short time earlier, Aaron studied the cave where he was supposed to find the group from the 52nd floor. The way there had been quiet and exceptionally dark. He had moved in the indicated direction, had kept to the walls and had to hope his senses told him the right way. He was not sure he had found the right place until he smelled sulfur in the air and paused. He followed the smell until he found himself in a long cave going towards a source of light in the distance. It was a surprise to find a natural source of light on this floor besides the light pools and glowstones. But the heat and the smell of sulfur made it clear why this was the case.

Aaron stepped out into the cave, staying concealed in deep shadows from the small tunnel connecting this cave with the one before it. There had been very few monsters he had encountered in the dark who had ignored him without any light making them agitated. Good. That fit nicely into his plans. He spotted the camp and the group from the 52nd floor quickly. They had set up guards. Two men stood on an elevated position looking down on the only entrance into the cave he could see.

Both men were armed, one with a long halberd and a lamp on his hips. The other wore a shield on his back and had a mace in a sling at his belt and another lamp in his hand that he lazily played with. Both guards looked bored, but they kept watch either way. They were positioned nicely. Their lamps illuminated the entrance so that nothing could enter the cave without them seeing it. Aaron was still concealed in the shadows of the tunnel and could see fairly well into the cave. Both of the men turned out to be boys at a second glance. Although the boy with the mace looked much older than the kid with the halberd.

Aaron frowned and studied the light and shadows at the entrance as he sought a way through the guards without them noticing. But as far as he could see, it was impossible to slip through unless both looked away at the same time. He did not want to engage them for now, just make himself an accurate picture of the groups strength and the exact location and makeup of their camp. So Aaron stayed quiet and listened and scented the air to get more information.

The first thing that hit him was the overwhelming smell of sulfur, but there was a strong acidic undertone that felt familiar. It took Aaron a few moments until he realized it was the smell of the cave ants he had encountered earlier. Just that this scent was much, much stronger, probably so it could be used in a cave stinking of sulfur. Aaron suspected from the light glowing and flickering towards the back wall of the cave that there was lava there, a lot of lava. The smell of the ants was curious, it was too strong for just a few ants. Aaron frowned as his ears picked up a sound like rustling sticks. That could not be right, sticks could not rustle right next to where he heard the bubbling lava and the heat making the air sizzle and waft. It took him another moment to realize those were ant legs stepping on rock. Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of legs.

The team from the 52nd floor had made their camp on top of the biggest ant nest Aaron had ever even imagined. At the size of those ants it must be a gigantic nest and the lava pit must only be an entrance to it. There was no way the entire nest was in this small cave with the amount of ants he could hear. This made the noise of the ants even more disturbing. How many of the things were there exactly? But at least the scent trail he could smell was not agitated, it had none of the sharp notes he had smelled when the ants had started to attack, so Aaron concluded that the ant nest was peaceful at the moment and that the Climbers nearby had not disturbed it at all. Why they had made their camp so close to that nest he could only guess. But for now Aaron concentrated on identifying each individual person in the camp.

There were eight of them, two women and 6 men. One of the men smelled intensely like ink, another one like herbs and a third one distinctly alchemical, which meant he smelled like a vat of chemicals. Those three were the easiest to identify. The two women were also fairly easy, one because she wore perfume and the other from the sound of her exclamations as she swung around a sword or a stick from the sound of it. The rest of the men were more difficult to discern. One of the men was the boy with the halberd who smelled relatively clean and just like sweat. It was difficult to actually get a tangible scent profile of any of the climbers because of the blasted sulfur and ant scents. The boy with the mace smelled faintly like iron, not like blood, but like coals and iron and Aaron guessed he was a blacksmith. The last man that Aaron managed to identify had the smell of a machine oil of some kind on his hands. It was subtle and Aaron almost missed it. It reminded Aaron a bit of the smell of a mechanics workshop back on earth. This was curious. Most of the group seemed to have distinctive crafting classes and not combat classes. Or at least they all had had distinct scent markers like someone would have who was a crafter.

It was possible these people had found a way to turn crafting classes into combat classes or vice versa. The people from upstairs were supposed to be extremely knowledgeable after all. What Aaron could glean from watching the guards was that they were disciplined and well trained. There was a pattern to their observation. A sweeping of the area. Three times, then a pause before they swept the area again three times. The posture and the general competence despite their obvious youth did remind Aaron of the group from upstairs he had met back down on the first floor. If less uniform and more individually capable. It felt like this group had been made specifically with classes in mind, while Aaron had gotten the feeling the previous group he had met had been all similar classes. There were different philosophies behind it, Aaron was sure, but in the end it did not matter. He would steal their spirits either way.

With his first assessment made, Aaron settled down to wait. He listened and followed the conversation in the camp and soon found out some interesting facts. The group leader was the female warrior and despite their knowledge, advanced classes and training, they were still teenagers. Teenagers with super powers. That was not a good combination Aaron thought to himself. There was considerable tension in the group. Most of which came apparently from the alchemist of the group, a guy called Orlean having wasted a grenade. The story slowly unraveled and Aaron picked up even more interesting facts. One was that they were using the grenades to do something. Probably Aaron guessed it had to do with the ant nest they had camped above. And two, Orlean had attacked the group from the 51st floor. What they did not seem to know is that one of them had died from the monsters that had been attracted by the explosion.

More importantly though the shouting match between the female captain and Orlean soon lead one of the guards, the blacksmith with the warhammer on his hip, to leave and take a look what the problem was. Aaron tensed and when the boy with the spear was distracted by the blacksmith leaving, Aaron took the opportunity and leapt up into the air, Wind Steps flaring to give him the power to leap straight up to the ceiling. He passed the cone of light and landed three quarters up the ceiling. Then he ran up the rest of the way up to the ceiling as silently as possible. His boots pushed him off the wall when the boy looked back from his comrade to his search pattern and Aaron vanished from even his peripheral vision. There were many rocky outcrops and stalactites hanging from the ceiling that made for convenient handholds and cover as Aaron slipped into their midst. Their shadows turned the ceiling into a dim world of half shadows that Aaron could hide in easily. Aaron clung upside down to the rocks and found it extremely easily to hang by even one hand from the ceiling. His physical strength was really something else. It felt like he could dangle from the ceiling for forever. His grip did not feel strong or hard to maintain, quite the opposite. It felt like gently holding onto a guardrail without any weight on it. Aaron guessed this feat was made considerably easier by the gravity defying Wind Steps he kept active.

The boy finished with his search pattern and Aaron let out an inaudible sigh of relief. He did not want to get spotted if he could help it. He did not have a plan yet how to deal with the group so keeping the element of surprise was a good idea, Aaron thought. He waited a few minutes, studying the boy with his halberd making sure that he had not noticed anything. But he did not even glance up to the ceiling once where Aaron was hiding. Emboldened by his success Aaron crawled along the ceiling to get a better look at the camp.

The camp was formed by five tents in a rough half circle placed on top of a small elevated plateau that had a hidden path snaking up a few rocks. It was a very defensible position as it had the cave wall to one side and on the other was a small black wall that separated them from the lava pit. The elevation made the two other sides very difficult to attack as well, as they were almost 20 feet above the cave floor. People would need a ladder to get up there. The only access to the plateau was hidden and narrow, easily defended by one person. Aaron shifted his position on the ceiling until he he could see into the lava pit below. It was deep, very deep and the walls of it were formed by black rock that looked like obsidian or molten black rock. The wall the separated the camp from the pit was made out of the same material. But there were small gaps in that wall that lead to prismatic effects of light cascading over the camp in mesmerizing colors.

Aaron frowned as he studied the pit. On a second look the walls seemed to be made out of a thick layer of cooled down lava, which would mean that the lava once reached all the way up to the plateau the camp was on. Which meant this was a volcano, not just a lava pit. An active volcano. Deep down in the pit Aaron could see a sea of lava and ants. Tens of thousands of them that were crossing the sea of lava. With his sharp eyes he could see that they had weird feet that seemed flat and broader than normal cave ants. They were also a different color. These ants were from firetruck red to a deep dark bloody crimson and they seemed to truly walk on the lava. Aaron stared into the relatively bright light of the volcano and studied the ants. They seemed to handle the heat alright, but they were not swimming in the lava or anything like it. Their feet just seemed to be able to handle the heat of the molten rock. The ants seemed to cross the lava on cooler or entirely cooled parts of the volcano, but sometimes this shifted. Aaron watched as a dozen or so ants were engulfed by a bubble in the lava that left behind nothing as the fiery death engulfed them.

So Aaron concluded, these ants were not actually impervious to the lava. They had just adapted very well to their environment. Aaron moved back around towards the camp, keeping out of the range of their lamps and campfire while he listened to the kids fight. Then Aaron paused slightly behind and above the boy with the halberd. He was alone, the rest of the team was very busy right now and he listened with half an ear to the captain make a short speech. There was an opportunity here, Aaron realized. Usually Aaron was not an opportunist. But the boy with the halberd was alone and far enough from the rest of the group that they would not hear a quiet struggle. There was also no line of sight as a pillar concealed him from view. It was a stalatite and a stalagmite who had fused together and formed a thick pillar more bulbous at the ends. Aaron stared down at the boy and knew he had to make a decision right now to take advantage of this opportunity. It would be incredibly useful to whittle down their numbers by one. Fighting seven and not eight right of the bat would give him a huge advantage.

Aaron hesitated only for a moment, before he decided to act right now. He made a quick plan and then put it into action immediately. Aaron could not just leap down towards the boy, the risk of being spotted in his peripheral vision was too great. He needed a silent distraction. So Aaron loosened a small rock from the ceiling and chucked it at the boys lamp. The rock moved with terrific speed and he had decent accuracy as he hit the side of the lamp. The small pebble tore into the fabric the lamp was made out of and came out on the other side. The glowstones contained inside burst out of the lamp in a spray of light making the boy with the halberd flinch in surprise. Aaron let go from the ceiling in that moment and dropped downwards slowly, for once cursing his amazing technique to let him fall faster. The boy recovered from his surprise and looked down at the lamp at his hip. He cursed and looked around in surprise and indignation, but he did not look up.

Aaron landed behind the boy with barely a whisper of a noise and then with one quick step Aaron was on top of him. He wrapped his arms around the boys neck. One arm around his neck in a choke hold, the other hand around his mouth to stifle a surprised scream. Aaron choked the boy with perfect technique, although their height difference made it a bit awkward, as he had to lower his center of gravity to get the right angle. His hand around the boys mouth held his entire jaw shut as the boy started to struggle. He let the halberd drop from his hands and grabbed at Aaron's arm. He struggled to free himself from Aaron's grasp with all his might, his fingers digging into his forearms, trying to pry them away from his throat. The boy was strong, his small, lean body held within a strength that was honestly surprising to Aaron. Soon the boy started to writhe in agony as he realized he was unable to breath. Frantically he tried to punch, to use his elbows, to scratch out Aaron's eyes. But to no avail. Aaron had done this plenty of times before and back then he had never been this strong. Aaron had to actually take it easy on the boy not to crush his windpipe or accidentally rip his head off. But Aaron had excellent control and his arms and hands were like steel vices, slowly but inevitably squeezing the life out of the young vessel in his clutches.

The struggle was loud in Aaron's ears but he knew it was not audible just a few feet away. Hands tore into his clothes, the boy kicked back with his head, struggled with his feet, yet could not hit him, could not move Aaron in any way or do anything but exacerbate his situation. After a minute of silent struggle the boy grew limp in Aaron's arms as even the enhanced physique of whatever class the boy had lost against Aaron's superhuman strength.

Aaron paused and checked the unconscious boys pulse, before he threw him over his shoulders and did a quick check of his vicinity. The other guard was coming back. Aaron had to hurry. Quickly Aaron leapt down the plateau towards the darkness of the tunnel in front of him, one arm clamped around the unconscious boys midriff. Aaron dove as quickly as he could into the darkness and only felt like he had gotten away with it when he entered the absolute darkness of the next cave, leaving even the glow of the lava behind him. Slowly he made his way back to their own camp. He actually took a wrong passage once and had to back up until he found his way again. Which meant it took him quite a bit of time. Aaron checked on the boy, but he was still unconscious and breathing shallow breaths. In the end, except his little mishap he found his way back relatively easy. He could soon smell the distinctive scents of his own group and after a few more minutes he entered the cave where they had set up their camp.

Shia was on guard, concealed in a half dark alcove, looking for any lights. Which Aaron thought was a much better way to keep watch than with lights, which would attract any monsters that came close to the camp. She frowned into the darkness, before Aaron called to her.

"Hey Shia. I am bringing presents." She flinched and ducked back around the corner of the alcove before she realized what and who probably had spoken.

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"Aaron? Back already?" she asked and came around the corner with a glowstone held in her hand.

Aaron nodded to her and then stepped into the small tunnel like bends towards the camp and blinked into the light of the district groups camp. The entire team soon stared at him and the boy over his shoulders.

"Hello everyone. As you can see I was busy. The fools got distracted and left behind a single guard alone at the entrance to their camp. Which I can tell you, is not really a good idea against me. Took the opportunity to nab one of them right of the bat." Aaron said and walked towards the back of the camp and set the boy down in the newly established makeshift prison. There were metal rings driven into the stone and thick sturdy ropes were tied in between them, already waiting for captives. Mortimer or Robin must have driven the metal rings into the rock. Robin actually, since the man was still breathing heavily from exertion.

"Great job." Roger said with a smile and gestured Shia closer.

"You know the drill, disarm him, take any magical items or anything else he could possibly use." he told her and Shia smirked wickedly.

"This is where my life long experience in stealing things comes in handy. Nobody hides stuff from me." Shia said to Aaron with a wink and then knelt down next to the boy and disarmed him quickly. Aaron watched her curiously as she moved from top to bottom, took off an amulet or necklace, Aaron never really got the difference, found an inlaid gold coin in the boys coat and a dagger at his hips. His coin pouch and a second hidden pouch followed. Then potions and last but not least Shia somehow found a small slip of paper in the boys shoes.

"How the hell?" Aaron wondered, but Shia just chuckled.

"These guys are amateurs. The inlaid jacket was a nice touch, but there is not enough space to hide anything of consequence. The shoes are usually better, but these." Shia knocked on the boys shoes and listened to the sound.

"These are solid, not hollow. But I check inside anyway."

The paper slip was interesting as Aaron spotted an intricate design on it. It looked vaguely like a circle like pie chart, or a piece of modern art and it was slightly magical. Roger studied the haul, went through the pouches, coming away with a few manastones, a whetstone and some papers with almost unintelligible writing. Then he studied the paper slip, frowned at it and then chucked it into the fire.

"That is a magic scroll." he explained to Aaron. "Never ever keep magic scrolls from enemies if you do not know what they do and don't want them to explode in your face." he lectured and Aaron nodded.

"I knew it was magical, just not what it was. Interesting. What do Magic scrolls do exactly?"

"Ah right, you can sense mana. Summoned benefit." Roger said with a slight bit of envy in his voice, before he continued.

"Magic scrolls are basically spells inscribed on a piece of paper. Very useful if you do not have a mage with you and they were made by someone who actually knows what they are doing. More common in Ambition. Most mages in the Town of Beginnings lack the skill to inscribe a scroll."

"Huh, they do not have a mage though. Could they have bought it?"

"Unlikely. Mars knows everything they bought from us, so he would have warned us." Roger said with a small frown.

"One of them smelled distinctly like ink, maybe they created it themselves." Aaron mused and Roger nodded.

"That is possible. The classes from upstairs can be a lot more...exotic."

Shia stood up after a thorough once over and nodded.

"I am done, the boy is clean. No contraband."

"Good, Mortimer if you would please introduce the boy to the ropes before he wakes up." Roger ordered and Mortimer walked over, picked the boy up like he weighed nothing and bound the boys hands after leaning him against the wall.

Shia studied the boy, then Aaron and leaned closer.

"So did you do it already?"

"Do what?"

"Take his spirit?" She asked. Stab silently stepped closer and looked at Aaron intently. Aaron shook his head and Shia grinned.

"Can we watch?"

"Watch? There isn't anything to watch really. I just touch him and viola the spirit is gone." Aaron said and the whole group just looked at him expectantly. He sighed and shrugged.

"Sure you can watch." He said and walked over to the prisoner who was still out cold. Aaron squatted down to be on the same height and reached into his dantian. Soul Catcher came far easier to him now than at the beginning, but it still took a few moments as he felt the Qi construct move into his hand and ready itself. Then Aaron reached out and touched the boys sternum. Just a light tap before he felt the Soul Catcher latch onto the spirit clinging to the boys soul. With a gentle yank Aaron freed the spirit from the Vessel and waited for a moment before the wriggling spirit settled down at his solar plexus. It was a fairly big, fat spirit and Aaron was pleasantly surprised by the haul.

The whole group watched Aaron intently, but when Aaron stood up they looked confused.

"Did you do it already?" Shia asked and the whole group tensed.

"Yes? I told you its not flashy." Aaron said with a shrug as he stepped away from the prisoner.

"Wait, that...was it? His class, his spirit is just gone like that?" Robin said with a confused laugh.

"Yep, no sparks, no magic lights, no incantations. I just touch you and your spirit goes bye bye." Aaron said with a smirk.

"Lord above." Mortimer murmured and the entire group looked at Aaron with apprehension and fear. Only Stab studied Aaron and then the boy with interest.

"The boy was a [Spearmaster]. You have his class now." Stab said curtly.

"That is what your identify skills tell you, yes. But I do not actually get the class. I just eat the spirit that gives the class." Aaron explained.

"You eat it?" Roger asked slowly.

"Metaphorically speaking, yes."

"Could you give the spirit back at this point?" Mortimer asked.

"Maybe? I have never tried, because why would I?"

The group shared a look and then Roger shrugged.

"Fair enough I guess. What is your plan now?"

"Now I am going to meditate and then I will go back and see how the group is dealing with one of them going missing." Aaron explained and settled down on the floor.

"Alright… Tell us if you need any help, we are here to support you."

"Thanks, but so far there is no need. Oh and you should probably feed that boy some healing potion, he should have woken up by now. I might have injured his neck more than I realized." Aaron said and closed his eyes. He checked his dantian and then the weighty feeling of the spirit. This might push him to another breakthrough. The fifth realm was not far and that would be a nice bonus. But he did not want to let the group know, nor did he think this was a good spot to break through. He was not sure if he was helpless during it, but he would be in danger for sure. He thought about telling them and having them guard him during his breakthrough. But really they did not have that kind of rapport yet. Aaron would not call the district group his friends and he did not know what they would do if he was vulnerable in any way.

Sure he had sparred with them, he had cooked with them and some people might call them friends. But Aaron knew how criminals worked, how people worked in that matter. If they thought they could gain something by killing him in a moment of weakness he would not bet his life on their friendship. Maybe he was overly cautious, but he did not want them to know everything about him. Secrecy in this case protected them both. Him from danger and them from temptation. So Aaron meditated while he heard Robin apply some healing potion to the boys throat. Aaron calmed down and focused. He prepared himself to break through to another realm. First he would need to find a spot to do that though. Preferably in the water because of the impurities leaving his body. Luckily water was not that rare on the fourth floor and Aaron could hear flowing water nearby. Now he just needed to meditate for a while and then leave pretending to go straight back to hunting more people, when in reality he was sitting in a pool of water or a stream becoming stronger.

Koris Jakrit woke up feeling like a cart had driven over him, backed up over his throat and then drove over him again. He opened his eyes and saw an unfamiliar man stand above him. This shocked him awake and he gasped. His whole body felt so heavy, so weak and he had a headache that threatened to block out all of his senses. He coughed violently and then when he had taken a few shuddering breaths he took stock of his situation. He sat in the back of a cave and he was obviously a captive. Ropes were bound his hands and legs and in front of him stood a gigantic man in armor. He had a greatsword he leaned casually against his shoulder so it was clear he was a vessel. He looked down at Koris with a stoic expression.

"Who...who are you?" he managed to ask.

"Your host for the next few weeks." the man said simply.

Koris studied the group that had captured him. There were only a few of them, not even a full group. From what he could see there were two warriors, a female rogue and two who could be either warriors or rogues. They were clearly not a group from upstairs, they were too old for that first and foremost. But they also had all the markers of climbers from the first floor. Except they didn't. Not all of them. The Climbers all had a rough side to them and their equipment looked well used and well maintained, but old. They also moved with confidence and ease. But two men stood out to him. A man who sat almost silently to the side, armed with a rapier and whose face was covered by a hood. When Koris first looked around he had missed the man, although he had always been there. Now that he spotted him, the man sent shivers down his spine. His instructors had always said Koris was a good judge of character, a good judge of strength. Which is why he never had gone for a variation of his class with an identify skill. Koris did not panic, or at least tried not to.

The second man that stood out to him sat on the ground with his eyes closed. His shoulder long dark hair and the hint of a beard gave him, like the others, a rough look. But he was not like the others. Just like the man with the rapier this man felt like death. He was muscular and in the thin outfit he wore, just black pants and a black shirt, he looked like a noble who had fallen on hard times. He was only armed with a dagger and some potions and yet when Koris looked at the man he felt like looking at a monster. The man did not move. He was absolutely still, he barely breathed for that matter and he reminded him of the spiders sitting in their nets waiting for pray to wander into their trap.

When he was young, Koris had been afraid of everything. Of animals, of people, of loud noises. He did not remember why that was the case, but his aunt had told him it had started when his parents had died. He did not remember their deaths, but he did remember being afraid. Fear had been his constant companion when he was young, especially fear of the monsters prowling through the night on the 52nd floor. People like him or his parents were not much more than snacks to those beasts.

All of that had changed when he had met a hero. The small town his family had lived in had been under siege from a particularly nasty monster infestation and Koris remembered huddling in their house and hearing the city walls creak as the monsters tried to get in and feast on the inhabitants of the town. There had been a crash and then roaring that he would never forget. A maw had bitten into their house, broke the stone and teeth taller than him had ripped apart their home. Koris had screamed and had been sure he would die that day, but then a man had slammed into the beast. He had thrown himself into the fight, a small man that had torn the beast that had terrorized them for weeks into tiny pieces. That had been the first time Koris had seen a hero, the first time he had met a Vessel and from that day on he was not afraid anymore.

From that day on he wanted to become like the heroes that had saved him. As he grew older and managed to get into the academy of the city they moved to after the beast incursion Koris felt embarrassed over his hero worship. He had never told anyone about that day, only about his dream to become a Vessel and protect his family, his home, his nation.

Koris was a patriot, a true believer in the principles of justice, democracy and liberty the Republic of the 52nd floor stood for. So when he had gotten the chance to become a Vessel himself he had been ecstatic. He had thrown himself into the preparation, into the training and then one day he stood before the wellspring of souls on the first floor and received his first class.

He had fought monsters since them, had stared them into their cold, heartless eyes and had ended their existence. Had grown not just in power, but as a man. But Koris knew fear. He knew what it felt like to see a monster he could not hope to best.

And this man looked exactly like those monsters to him.

But during his training he had learned to handle his fear, to face monsters like this and so Koris took a deep breath. It hurt to breathe, hurt to move and he knew he was injured. He felt so incredibly weak. But he was a [Spearmaster], a soldier of the 52nd Republic and he would not give up. He would survive this ordeal and come out on the other side stronger, he vowed to himself. So he calmed down and tried to understand the position he was in.

He had been kidnapped, but since he was still alive there was a good chance that they wanted to ransom him. They wanted something from him and he knew what it was. Knowledge. 'Those from below always wanted to steal what was rightfully ours.' He thought.

But it would not be as easy as they might imagine. There was a locator slip inside of his shoe and the identification coin, both of which could be used to locate him, although the coin was a lot more difficult to find than the locator. It was one of those measures taught by their instructors who had done the journey before, that Koris wholeheartedly agreed with. There was a fairly high chance to get lost during combat or in an accident and so the Office of Climbing had included multiple redundancies in their plans for this route just for this occasion. To his dismay all of his stuff was in a small pile next to the fire. They had stripped him of anything useful. Except the locator slip. That was not in the pile So there was a good chance Ketris would find him.

But then they would have to fight these people and he was not sure if they were strong enough to take on this group. Especially not the two he feared. No, he had to get out of here on his own strength. Koris had skills that would allow him to escape! His [Spearmaster] class was a modified version and much more flexible and defensive than people realized, even though he had a decent offense. But when Koris tries to call up his interface to check on himself and to visualize his options like he had learned during training nothing happened. He frowned and called the status again. But nothing happened again. Maybe it was because he felt so sick and weak, had these people poisoned him?

"What have you done to me?" he asked more in a reflex than a serious question and he was shocked at how weak his voice sounded. The man standing guard next to him looked down to him again and gave him a look full of pity.

"I am sorry kid, its nothing personal, but we took your spirit. Your class is gone." he said.

Koris blinked confused. They had what?

"What do you mean? You poisoned me, right?" he said, desperately trying to use skills he knew he had.

[Spearmasters Defense] should have given him the ability to wriggle out of these binds, but when he activated the skill nothing happened. The feeling of his body becoming super humanly limber did not come. Now Koris really started to panic.

"No, kid. We took your class. You are a normal person again. Your class is gone." the man said with a shrug.

"How?! Its impossible to do that!" Koris protested and could not believe the man. His frantic movements and struggling did nothing but make him feel worse. His headache was killing him and his body felt like it was not his own anymore. Nothing he had ever learned had told him that was possible. Not even upstairs. Nobody could do that. This had to be a lie. Had to. They were supressing his skills. They had poisoned him. He was a Vessel, he would recover. He...

"It was in the past. It isn't now." the man with the greatsword said calmly, interrupting Koris frantic thoughts.

Koris freaked out. The fear and barely concealed panic got the better of him and he felt like he could not breathe anymore. He had to get away, had to get out. He had to… He struggled, he wriggled, he flopped forward and got held back by his restraints. The ropes digging painfully into his hands. Ropes like this should not be able to hold his strength. He strained against the ropes, using all of his enhanced strength and failed. His arms felt so weak, so powerless. He tried everything he had ever learned to call on any of his abilities, even things he could not use without a spear in his hands. Tears streamed down his face as his vision grew blurry and he started hyperventilating. They could not have taken his class. It was impossible. He was never going back to being afraid, never going back to being powerless. He had made it. He was a Vessel. They could not take this from him. The pain in his body intensified until he finally was swallowed by the darkness and lost consciousness. With a gasp Koris collapsed in his restraints.

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