Notification! Statistical Synchronization (Inherent) has absorbed New Skill: Natural Raid Leader 1/5 (Inherent) to create United We Stand 1/4 (Inherent): Boosts dedicated party members' statistics by 45% of the user's statistics. Allows the formation of alliances with other parties, boosting their members by 22.5% of the user's statistics. Current skill level allows the designation of 1 Allied Party.

Ian kept rereading the notification as he waited for everyone else to join him after cleaning up. The ride back had been unbearable, as they tried to keep their skills hidden. He was happy that it was keeping him occupied, because he didn't want to think of the crowd that had gathered outside of the Fang's Den to greet him when he left. The number of cameras and drones that were getting footage nearly drowned out the people.

Unfortunately, the commotion hadn't been enough to stop him from seeing his ex-girlfriend standing in the crowd. She was trying to blend in, but the sight of his old college hoodie had instantly drawn his eye. Her blank expression as she watched him had left him feeling more than a little unsettled.

Shaking away the memory, he turned as Mara padded into the room through the open door to the hallway.

"Hey girl, how are you feeling?" Ian said, scratching behind her ear when she came over to greet him. "Sorry, we didn't stay long enough to get you and your friends up to the next milestone. I don't think Ash would have been able to survive waiting."

Mara chuffed and rubbed her head into her hand.

"I would have been fine!" his sister said, coming through the door.

Mara looked over at her and chuffed before shaking her head in a very human-like fashion.

"Oh, don't give me that," Ashlyn said, glaring at Mara. "You know I have tons of patience, along with the willpower and self-control of a monk. I haven't even eaten all the candy bars we got yesterday."

"Oh, how many you got left?" Ian asked.

"Two," she said, smiling as she sat down on the sofa next to him and kicked her feet up on the coffee table.

Giving her a look, he raised his eyebrows. "How many did you start with?"

"Ahhh…more than two?" Ash said before turning to glower at Mara. "You traitor. You're supposed to be on my side."

Ian looked back at Mara to watch the prowler literally roll its eyes.

"Hey Mara, blink twice if it was more than ten," he said.

"Don't you dare!" Ashlyn screamed, covering his face with her hands.

"It was a box of twelve," Nia said as she skipped into the room without her human guise on. She jumped onto the sofa and laid her head down onto Ashlyn's lap. "Don't try to hide it. They were delicious, and you didn't eat all of them. Mara and I both had a couple."

"You seem to be opening up," Ian chuckled as Selenia kicked off her slippers and hung her feet over the arm at the end.

"By the Moon Goddess, being here is the best thing that has ever happened to me," she said, giving him a smile as she looked up at him from Ashlyn's lap.

"Just wait until the next milestone," he replied with a chuckle.

'Oh no, not that," she said, giggling. "I'm talking about being free and surrounded by friends. I haven't been scolded or beaten in days—days!" Ian internally winced at the excitement she had for being treated like a person, but Ashlyn's subtle glance told him to leave it alone. "—I can eat real food and buy tons of pretty clothes. I can even do nothing if I want to, and nobody is waiting to catch and punish me for it."

"So, you're enjoying playing at being human?" Ian said, leaning against his sister so he could meet Selenia's eyes without her having to move.

"I'm enjoying a lot of stuff. I mean, look at my toes!" she said, holding her feet up and showing off the bright pink nail polish. "Ash helped me make them beautiful! I have plenty of different colors now, too. So, we are going to change them every week.

"The biggest problems I have are more culture-based. Understanding some of the stuff you all do and talk about is difficult, but Lana gave me a bunch of books that have helped me understand the intricacies of humanity's interpersonal interactions.

"With this reference material, it's pretty obvious my father made a huge mistake by giving you to me. All he had to do was put me in a dangerous situation in a dungeon for you to save me. Then, after you saved me, we'd get right to physically expressing our undying love for one another."

Ian looked over to Ashlyn, barely containing his laughter.

"Hey, Lana's apparently into erotic novels," she said with a smirk. "Having read some of the ones she's lent our new friend here, she's got really good taste. Definitely kinky, but still really good taste."

Looking over, Ian saw Lana standing in the doorway holding her temples.

"Hey Lana," Ian said, causing Ashlyn's head to turn and Selenia to pop her head up just long enough to wave.

"Go on in," Tram said from the hall. "I'm sure that you will get over whatever embarrassing thing Ash just said."

Ian nudged his sister, "See, they are getting used to you. He didn't even hear what it was to know it was you."

She stuck out her tongue before turning back to Lana, "We weren't saying anything bad. You have good taste. Much better than those harem novels Ian used to read before he left for college."

"Hey, they were progression fantasy novels, and the story lines in some of them were absolutely fantastic," Ian said, giving her a huge shit-eating grin.

Ashlyn shrugged her shoulders after a second and nodded her head. "You have a point there. I read through most of them once you left, and there were some really kick ass heroines in them, and some of the stories were pretty awesome. I especially loved the old school LITRPG progression ones that had similar systems to what the dungeon uses.

"But I could tell there were some that just weren't written for me. From a female perspective, it was kinda sad when a heroine was easier to remember by her hair color than her name. Also, some of the main characters weren't worth the women they were attracting."

"Damn, that's savage," Tram said with a chuckle. "But you aren't wrong. Sometimes it's nice to read that kind of popcorn smut, though. Kinda like the romance novels some women like. I mean, how many buff firefighters who bend to their partner's every whim are there in the world?"

"As many as we need there to be," Lana said, getting a high five from Ashlyn before taking her seat next to Tram on the second sofa.

Hearing the door close, Ian turned to see Claire securing the room. She waved as she grabbed his desk chair and pulled it over.

"Sorry about that," she said. "Had to deal with my mom."

"Dinner didn't make things better?" Lana asked.

"Ah, no," Claire said with a grimace. "But don't worry about it. I'm sure everything will work out eventually.

"Besides, we need to talk about our new skills," she changed the subject as she began to wiggle in her seat. "I'll go first. My new skill doubles the effectiveness of my space magic skills! Which I should be getting my first few combat-oriented ones in the next five hundred levels."

"That's going to be crazy," Tram said. "Mine isn't as exciting, but it is going to be pretty amazing with our current buff. I got the inherent version of Shield Master, which reduces the speed of anything that is about to hit my shield. It helps cushion the blow, while also making my shields twice as durable."

"Good, you will take less damage for me to heal," Lana said. "I received an aura called Adaptive Nature. It gives a buff that increases elemental resistances by a small amount to my party members within a hundred yards. It is a leveled skill, so I'll try to get it maxed. It only requires five hundred SP per level, so I'll probably have it done pretty quickly."

"Good deal," Claire said. "We are going to need resistances soon."

"Oh, me next!" Selena said before she held both of her hands up and summoned a small ice shard above each one. "I received Dual Cast. I can now cast two spells at once with no loss in effect. It does require the mana for each, though, so I can drain myself empty pretty quickly."

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"Nice!" Ashlyn said, "Mine is another inherent skill for my summons. It is called Pack Leader, and provides my pack leader, Mara, a 10% bonus to her status when the other two are present."

Ashlyn turned to Ian, causing him to realize it was his turn. Smiling, he just stared at them for a moment.

"Ian, you better spill," Claire said, leaning forward. "I've been ready for your info since you figured whatever it was out in the dungeon earlier. Now spill."

"Alright, alright," he said, laughing. "I've actually got a couple of things to bring up. The first is that my new skill was absorbed into Statistical Synchronization. The new skill was called Natural Raid Leader, and after the merger, it turned into a skill called United We Stand. It allows us to create an alliance that provides 22.5% to members of designated allied parties. The change also allows our entire party to always be buffed."

"That's insane," Tram said, sitting up and leaning forward. "How many parties?"

"The skill only allows one at the current level, but there are four more levels to purchase. I don't know what the final amount will be, but each level costs ten thousand SP. So, it's a rather large investment.

"I also discovered something else during the dive today," Ian added before anyone could ask questions. "When I finished maxing out the uncommon status buffs, they all merged into a single skill called 'Ascension (Uncommon)' and it boosted the bonus by an additional 50% over the previously maxed skills."

"That is actually something we've speculated might happen, but we've never had any proof," Claire said after a moment. "It doesn't help that most of the basic skills don't have the full skill groups unlocked at low levels. For example, there is a skill called Enhanced Core to go with Enhanced Mind and Enhanced Body, but it only unlocks if you get the skill Core Creation, which is an ultra-rare tier skill costing five thousand SP and getting a ton of mana regeneration skills maxed before you can purchase it. Then you would need to get Enhanced Soul which requires a bunch of different kinds of resistance skills.

"Honestly, this is information that the top clans may know about, but the AO has never had someone who accomplished it. You've earned the AO a lot of respect by releasing the information on hard mode awakening challenges to the public. I'm pretty sure Mavis is going to want to have your babies if you keep giving her presents like this."

"Whoa! Let's slow down there," Tram said, sitting up. "The Guild Master is a whole lot of perfection wrapped up in a late twenties something package with decades of experience. There is no way our boy here could survive the encounter." He blinked a couple of times and shook his head before looking directly into Ian's eyes with a serious expression. "Just know, we all not only approve of your sacrifice, but will remember you as the epitome of a young man striving for greatness."

"God damn it, Tram," Lana said, hitting him in the ribs. "He's not going to go hopping in bed with a woman old enough to be his grandmother."

"Heh, I'd hop on that wagon in a heartbeat," Ashlyn said, causing Lana's expression to change to shock. "What? Mavis has got it going on. If I look that good in my…she's gotta be in her seventies? Eighties?"

"She's in her late eighties," Claire answered automatically before catching herself.

"Damn she's fine for her age," Ashlyn replied. "But back to my point—not everyone's got it, but she's got it in excess. Besides, casual hookups are apparently common for adventurers after they hit level one hundred. So, maybe Ian's got a chance."

"Yeah, probably gonna pass on that one," Ian said, chuckling as he nudged his sister. "Besides, it wouldn't do to ruin all the brownie points I've earned by giving her a substandard performance. It's kinda publicly documented that I'm not exactly a bastion of experience, and that I've been on an extended dry spell."

"Well, just go pick up some random hottie in the cafeteria and practice," Ashlyn said, nudging him back.

"Ash! He can't just go do something like that," Claire said.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Ashlyn asked incredulously. "I bet if either Ian or Tram walked into the cafeteria and started hitting on girls, they could have one, if not more, back in their room before we even got our food to the table. They are the two most powerful male adventurers in this AO branch, and it isn't like we couldn't do the same thing. You and Lana are even more plugged into social media than I am, so you know that the only reason we aren't being mobbed by female adventurers at dinner—"

"We get it Ash, we really do," Lana said, cutting off the younger woman. "Ian—"

"Is right here and doesn't really want to talk about this anymore," Ian cut in, causing the three women to look mildly embarrassed. "What I would like to talk about is what everyone thinks about extending an offer for Restless Hands to become our allies through my new skill. It might even be possible to get two allied parties. I have enough SP to purchase another level of United We Stand right now, but I don't know what it's going to do."

"It has to improve the skill somehow," said Claire. "Plus, you should try to max it out before level five thousand anyways. Being able to help our allies is paramount for the later dungeons when the monsters become considerably stronger than an adventurer of the same level."

"At the same time, I could drop those forty thousand SP needed to max out that skill into maxing two of the rare stat boosters like Herculean Strength and Sage's Wisdom. I could focus almost solely on stat skills and try to keep our entire party ahead of the curve for as long as possible."

"Well, we are also placing points into the stats boosters as well," Tram said with a shrug. "Eventually, the bonuses you are giving us will have a lower impact for the point cost. The bonuses are huge right now because they are huge compared to our natural stats. When we are level twenty thousand, our natural stats will be high enough that a couple thousand is a much smaller increase by percentage than when we were level five hundred.

"Besides, finding good groups that we can help out now and build that foundation of trust will help us significantly down the road. It isn't like we don't already have some good connections, and the more people there are who benefit from your stats buff makes every point you spend on them reach that much farther."

"That is a good point," Nia said. "My father runs the dungeon with three other full parties from his faction, and their dives usually take weeks. They call it a war party, and it comes together to fight the larger monsters and bosses that spawn in the higher dungeons."

"We call them raid parties here, but it's the same principle," Claire explained. "We can have up to four groups in a raid, but the experience per kill is spread out among more people. Raids become pretty common near the end of the high-tier, though we will probably start seeing them around level five thousand when the dungeons that will support raids become available. The low number of rankers active in the ultra-tier is a big reason why they aren't able to run very often."

Thinking about it for a second, Ian had to agree with their points.

"Alright, so I think that is settled then," he said, giving everyone a smile. Turning to Claire, he asked, "Are you down with talking to James with me in a little bit? I got a text from Jen saying they would be in for dinner tonight. Want me to see if she and James want to swing by here first?"

"Probably for the best. I'll check the dungeon system and see if there is anything that needs to be done for it," she replied. Unsecuring the room, she pulled out her tablet. "Oh, I got a message from Diana asking if we could meet up with her in the next few days."

"Cool, just let me know when," Ian said, holding his phone. "Text sent. She'll get it when they are done with their run."

His phone beeped, causing everyone to look at it. Opening it back up, he just smiled and shook his head.

"Apparently, they finished early today and will be up here in a little bit," he said, looking over at Claire.

A few minutes later, Ian got up to answer the knock on the door. Opening it, Jen came in with her moon elf form still activated.

"Hey Ian," Jen said before seeing everyone else in the room. "Oh, it looks like we got a full house today!"

As everyone started to greet her, Selenia popped her head up before jumping to her feet, pointing at Jen.

"You're Glade Runner!" Selenia screamed.

"Why do you look like me?!" Jen screamed as James did a double-take as he entered the room.

"Me look like you? I've always looked like this. Besides, you don't look just like me, you have green hair. What strange thought ever made you think you needed to have green hair? Who even does that?"

Jen just blinked at the anger in Selenia's voice.

"Stop, stop, stop!" Ian said, moving to block the Faeorcen woman as she came around the side of the couch. "Everyone, stop for a moment and calm down. Nia, think for a moment about what we talked about. She isn't at fault for the things your family did to you. Besides, you look like you could be her twin when you utilize your Terran skill as well. Should she be upset at something neither of you can control?"

Her lips trembled for a moment as the anger bled out of her. She took a deep breath and wiped at the corners of her eyes. Looking past him at Jen, she dropped her gaze to the floor and leaned her head forward into Ian's chest.

"No," she said quietly as Ian wrapped his arms around her and gave her a hug. "I'm sorry for the shameful way I acted."

"Nothing to be sorry for," Ashlyn said, from where she now stood behind her friend. "I feel kind of stupid, because none of us thought about you not being disguised."

Ashlyn wrapped her arms around Selenia and pulled her friend in for a hug.

"I'm sorry, but can someone please explain what is going on here?" Jen said. "I'm so confused."

Ian nodded, "Our sixth party member, Nia, is actually the daughter of the Faeorcen representative that visited last week. Due to some strange cultural misunderstandings, she was left here with me? Yeah, let's go with her being left here with me."

"The way she looks isn't a skill, it is her natural form," Claire added. "Unfortunately, she wasn't treated well by her family, and they would tease her about being human because you look so much like her in your elven form. She knows it isn't your fault, we've even talked about it before. It's just hard for her."

"I am so sorry," Jen said as she walked past Ian and went to kneel down in front of the woman. Reaching out, she grabbed the other woman's hands, "If I knew that someone was being hurt because of my skill, I swear I would have never used it. I originally chose that skill because I wanted to be beautiful and graceful like a real elven princess from the fantasy stories I used to read."

"It's not your fault," Selenia said, looking up to meet Jen's eyes. "My people are just…they aren't good people. Many of them take joy in hurting and tormenting others and will find any way they can to tear others down to elevate themselves." Selenia gave a small sniffle before she gave Jen a smile, "I'm sorry."

Selenia leaned forward and gave Jen a hug.

"Now, if you two want to see something really crazy, you should activate your Terran skill and go stand in front of a mirror with Jen," Ashlyn said. "You two could be twins!"

"What?" Jen said before Selenia and Ashlyn grabbed her and rushed her off to the bathroom.

"So…that was a thing," James said, watching the girls disappear into the bathroom. Turning back to Ian, he asked, "So what's up?"

"We wanted to sit down and talk about a skill I got for hitting the last milestone, and how we can use it to help both of our parties excel in the dungeon," Ian said.

James gave him a giant grin, "Well, you've got my att—"

"Holy shit, James," Jen squealed, cutting her party member off as she ran back into the living area pulling a giggling Nia. Shoving her human face up next to Selenia's, she pointed between the two. "They weren't joking. If I got the skills for silver eyes and hair, we'd be identical."

"Definitely, but why is she giggling so much?" he asked.

"Because it would probably make her evil stepmothers shit bricks watching Glade Runner prancing around looking like their daughter, especially since they know she knows her," Ashlyn said, smirking next to her giggling friend.

"I love subtle payback," Tram said as Lana began laughing.

"And it will barely cost me anything since I can just switch around which skill I buy when I prestige," Jen said with an evil grin.

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