Draken allowed Asher the use of his study to prepare as he went to spread the news to everyone that he'd miraculously pulled through. To Asher's surprise, Draken had informed him that his 'death' had hit Kree particularly hard, and Asher made a mental note to do something nice for the thief when he had the chance.

Appearing out of nowhere in front of him like that in the condition he'd been in had probably scarred the poor guy rather badly.

While he stretched and took stock of his Personal Rift, Asher finally went through the many notifications that had been patiently waiting for him since he'd died.

Astral Dip - Lvl 24

Recall - Lvl 7

Identify - Lvl 22

Identify - Lvl 23

Comprehend - Lvl 24

Eternal Regeneration - Lvl 25

Eternal Regeneration - Lvl 26

Complete Resilience - Lvl 23

Eternal Mark - Lvl 18

Asher couldn't help but let out a low whistle at the giant list of level ups. He knew that combat pushed skills to level faster, and life or death situations knocked that up another notch entirely, but it still blew his mind to find so many different level ups waiting for him. Most noticeably, Identify and Eternal Regeneration had each leveled up twice, despite the fact that they were already evolved skills. It seemed passively using Identify on all the materials and concoctions in Eight's workshop and rebuilding his damaged body and coming back from the dead had done wonders for his skills.

He hadn't even had the chance to utilize any of his potions other than one of his Lesser Restoration potions, which meant his biggest loss was his two steel daggers. The molten steel had also eaten through a large portion of his bandolier, and it was a miracle the heavily damaged leather had managed to stay secured across his torso up until now.

With a sigh, Asher stripped off the bandolier and held the damaged equipment in front of him, admiring it one final time. Alongside most of his daggers, his bandolier was one of the first things he'd snagged for himself in this world from the lich's tower. He'd have to find someone in the city to make him a new one, but that was a problem for later. For now, he stored his daggers within his Personal Rift. It would be a pain if he needed to retrieve one of them while he was in the astral realm, but it was the best he could do at the moment.

Inventory checked and muscles limbered up, there was only one last thing he needed to take care of before his rematch with Eight.

Thankfully, when Draken left to spread the good news, he'd had the forethought to inform one of his chefs that Asher could use a quick bite to eat. As it turned out, nothing built up an appetite like coming back from the dead and rebuilding chunks of his body from scratch.

Just as Asher finished up his stretches, there was a knock on the door, and Crush poked his head in, offering him one of his rare smiles.

"Glad to see you pulled through," he said, stepping inside and handing him a bowl of soup with a hunk of bread. "The chef thought you'd prefer something light after your near-death experience… But I suppose he didn't need to worry."

"Nope, I'm fit as a fiddle," Asher grinned, thanking him for the soup before inhaling the still-scalding liquid. It reminded him of tomato soup from his own world, but with a slight kick to it. "How was getting back from the fourth ring?"

"Easy," Crush chuckled. "When the guards managed to separate us, they all but tossed us on our asses back into the third ring. Technically, they should have arrested us for trespassing, but I think they just wanted to avoid making an even bigger spectacle."

"How did the two of you even get into the fourth ring anyway?" Asher asked, using his bread to scrape the remaining soup off the side of the bowl. "Did you go over the wall?"

"Secret passage," Crush grunted. "Ask Draken if you really want to know."

"I'll do that." Finishing off the dregs of the meal, Asher sighed and handed the bowl back to the waiting elite. "Thanks for all your help by the way. I know you did it because of Draken, but I still appreciate it."

"I should be the one thanking you," Crush said, shaking his head. "Regardless, it's not done yet, is it? You heading off to finish what you started?"

"That's exactly where I'm going in fact," Asher grinned, pulling out his mithral dagger. The time for playing around had long since passed. If the situation presented itself, he was going to kill Eight before the man even knew what hit him. "Before that though, any chance you have any fabric lying around? Or even just an old shirt you don't mind getting ruined?"

Asher was only mildly surprised when Crush simply stripped off his own shirt and handed it to him. He'd already known the large elite was powerfully built, but he couldn't help but feel a little jealous at the sheer amount of muscle mass the man had.

Damn it, is protein powder a thing in this world, or something? I really need to hit the gym.

Shaking his head, he graciously accepted the shirt before tearing a large strip out of it with his dagger. The shirt felt like a rather thick cotton, which he could only hope would be perfect for his purposes. Tying it around the lower half of his face, he could see the question in Crush's eyes.

"Eight has a Mold element," he explained, tapping the impromptu mask he'd made. "This should keep most of the spores from getting into my lungs again. Hopefully."

"Whatever you say," Crush shrugged, motioning for him to keep the rest of the shirt. "Be careful out there."

"No need to tell me twice," he chuckled, taking a deep breath and happily noting that the fabric made it just a little bit harder to breathe.

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Perfect. Let's hope that actually does something against the mold spores.

Dagger at the ready, Asher activated Recall and watched the world blur and shift around him. In an instant, Draken's study and Crush's encouraging face vanished, replaced instead with a foul-smelling sewer tunnel and the shocked screech of a mold-covered rat. Lashing out, Asher silenced the rat before it could attack him or give his presence away more than it already had, wrinkling his nose at the discovery he was standing almost knee deep in what looked and very much smelled like raw sewage.

Whelp… Gonna have to burn these clothes later.

Looking around, Asher spotted a good handful of regular-looking rats scurrying away in fear of his sudden appearance. The bad news was that he hadn't appeared in Eight's backup workshop like he'd hoped.

The good news was Secret Seeker was currently drawing his attention to the moisture-lined walls of the sewer, where he was just able to make out the splotches of mold hidden among the nasty grime.

Jackpot, he grinned, his eyes following the mold as it led further down the tunnel. Ironic that your deadliest weapon would lead me right back to you.

Even with his makeshift-mask in place, Asher didn't want to push his luck by standing around breathing in the stagnant air surrounding the mold. After all, sewer systems weren't exactly known for their ventilation. Keeping his eyes peeled for any sort of trap, he made his way deeper into the sewer, carefully following the signs of mold as he hunted for his prey.

Absent-mindedly, he noted how his assassin class magically reduced even the sound of his footsteps when they were splashing through the nasty muck, which was a godsend in the echoing sewer tunnels. Otherwise, Eight probably would have been able to hear him coming from a mile away.

It wasn't long before the light patches of mold grew thicker and more pronounced, to the point where he no longer needed Secret Seeker to help point them out, and not long after that before they began morphing into strands that clearly weren't natural. Asher made sure to stay as far from the mold as possible as he walked, particularly when he spotted one clump that had what looked like a decaying rat clutched in a bundle of thin stalks.

Last time he'd checked, mold wasn't supposed to be capable of hunting rodents.

Finally, he came across a sealed door in the sewer wall that reminded him of a submarine hatch. It looked like it was made of solid steel and had a large wheel attached to it, clearly intending for it to be air tight. Asher didn't know how Eight's mold had managed to escape if that truly was the case, but he supposed even opening the door for just a moment would be enough for some of the spores to get out.

Moment of truth…

Clutching his mithral dagger, Asher slipped into the astral and stepped through the sealed door, looking around in search of Eight. He'd half expected to find another empty workshop filled with traps and no sign of Eight to be had.

Which made it all the more shocking when he spotted a man with an annoyed look on his face standing within a remarkably large room. He was busy carefully adjusting one of the many potions suspended upside down throughout the room, each one functioning like one of those dripping water bottles people used back on Earth to take care of a hamster.

[Alchemist] - 3/3 Elements

The man he could only assume was Eight appeared to be in his mid-fifties. He had prominent grey streaks through his hair, and he wore a dark robe that looked almost fuzzy of all things, more like a bathrobe than anything Asher had seen in this world up until now. He was tall but thin, and his attention was currently on one of the countless rats scattered throughout the room, petting the rodent as it began drinking from the suspended potion bottle.

Because while he'd managed to find Eight, the Finger wasn't alone.

He was surrounded by what had to be at least a thousand or two disgusting, mold-covered rats.

Looking down, Asher's face paled as he realized even his own feet were currently standing within the sea of washed out rats. He could barely even make out a clear spot on the floor, there were so many of the rodents running around. Each one was at least two or three times larger than a regular rat, and they all had the same bloodshot eyes and thick layer of mold covering their matted coats. Despite their diseased and sickened appearance though, each of the rats ran around brimming with vitality, tackling one another for scraps or fighting amongst themselves to drink from one of the many suspended potions Eight had set up for them.

"Knock it off," Eight snapped, glaring at one of the rats as it grew tired of being jostled around and sank its teeth into one of its brothers. To Asher's surprise, the rat actually shied away from Eight's annoyed look, yanking its teeth free and running to the far side of the room. Satisfied, Eight went back to his potion, muttering something under his breath as he adjusted the strap keeping it suspended.

This… might be a problem.

On the one hand, Asher had finally managed to track down Eight. The Finger stood right before him, confident in his thinking that Asher had been dealt with and having no idea that his death was standing in the room with him at this very moment.

On the other hand, the sheer number of rats running around was so ridiculous, Asher literally couldn't return from the astral realm without erasing his own legs from the calves down. He briefly contemplated trying to jump and return while in midair, but that would just result in him landing among a sea of angry, mold covered rats, and he didn't really want to see if he could regenerate back from being eaten alive.

The simplest solution of course would be to simply back out and wait for Eight to eventually leave. The man had to leave sooner or later, and he'd be easy pickings once he finally did.

Unfortunately, Asher was on something of a timer.

Supposedly, it would only take a few days for the Frent family to resurrect Leighann, and he'd already spent one of those very few days recovering from his own death. The longer he spent waiting for Eight to move to a more optimal location, the less time he'd have to figure out how to prevent Leighann from getting resurrected and revealing his elements to the world.

He'd be willing to wait a couple of hours, but based on how engrossed Eight looked in whatever experiment he was currently running, Asher was worried the man might lose track of time and spend all day in here playing with his rats. The man experimented on mold of all things, not exactly a lifeform known for its fast-growing speed. And if that wasn't bad enough, there was a miniature work station set up in the center of the room, complete with a smattering of glassware and a chair. Eight could feasibly stay in here for days, if it weren't for the need to eat.

Naturally, it was immediately after having that thought that Eight brought the sleeve of his robe up to his mouth and took a bite of it, absentmindedly chewing away as he worked.

For the first time since he'd gained his strange powers, Asher almost learned what happened to vomit when someone threw up within the astral realm as he realized the fuzz covering the robe Eight was wearing was mold, of which the man had just taken a nice big bite out of.

Asher had an entirely different reason to kill him now.

The fact that Eight had a source of food meant Asher really couldn't try and wait him out, so he sighed and began wading forward into the sea of rats, stepping carefully and ensuring he moved his upper body as little as possible to reserve energy. Despite the fact that he wasn't actually touching any of them, he still shivered as he phased through the wriggling mass of rodents. Barely making it to the workstation in the center of the room, Asher had just enough time to clamber up on top and double check that he wasn't currently standing in any glassware before his skill ran out.

It wasn't his primary method of fighting, but unless he wanted to risk running across the sea of rats, Asher didn't really have any choice. The room was large enough that he was still a good forty feet from the alchemist, which was far out of his stabbing range. Instead, the moment he returned to the material realm and the nearest three dozen rats all snapped over to look at him, he compressed a tunnel of space and hurled one of his steel daggers directly at Eight's back.

He watched with bated breath as the dagger flew across the room and turned end over end, headed straight for the unsuspecting alchemist. His aim was true, and the blade sank deep into flesh with a satisfying squelch. The only problem was…

The flesh it sank into was that of a rat who had leapt up at the last moment to take the hit in place of its master, saving Eight's life and alerting the alchemist to his presence.

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