After the endless battle against his teacher, Marcus was trying to return to a normal state of mind. His hearing came back in full and his view broadened. He got a large water bottle from Kou and enjoyed the clean, fresh taste in his throat. "You are bloody annoying to fight against. Especially if I'm not allowed to kill you." Were Kim's first words to Marcus since the fight had ended. His teacher was visibly drained and Kou offered him a bottle too, he took it gratefully.

"I know! You are so restricted in your attack patterns, because of Carapace and slowly working him down does not work because of his healing and insane vitality," Grace said, nodding all the way. "Could we all stop talking about trying to kill me? The gauntlet is over, can I not rest now?" Marcus pleaded and his friends laughed.

Kim's people praised him too and Amy gave him an extra thumbs up for getting a hit in. "Don't let him fool you. I know our peerless leader long enough to tell, that one hurt!" And she grinned. Marcus gave Ye-jun a look and the Paladin waved it off "It was not so bad, I just could not use my hand for the rest of the battle," Marcus blinked as he heard that. His attack had actually caused Kim problems. Of course Ye-jun had held back against his disciple, but still.

Don't get too excited, in a real battle you would have been dead in five seconds.

You can't let me have anything, do you?

Overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer.

With a clap of her hands Janette drew the attention of the crowd "You guys go and freshen up, and then it is time for the presents!" She said with an excited voice. "Presents?" Marcus said with surprise, but he did not learn more instead he was shoved towards the showers. When he came out again, the clan had prepared a feast in the sun, outside the villa. Benches and tables were put up and cakes appeared out of nowhere. "What is going on?" Marcus asked the grinning Janette. "You survived the duels but more importantly, we all have missed several of your birthdays. Today we celebrate you." Completely caught off guard Marcus spent the rest of the day laughing and enjoying himself. No more fighting, no worries, just talking and eating a whole lot of food.

After the first set of cakes and coffee Marcus got presents from everybody he knew. Janette and Cherry gave him new, fancy headphones, and he nearly cried because he had missed music a lot over the years. Achara and Kou handed him a lovely photo album with important events of the last years. Marcus spent several hours going over every picture and hearing the stories behind them. From Candis he got a self made painting of the villa in the summer with all flowers blooming. The present from Grace surprised him somewhat, she gave him a book with an updated ranking list for all classes and detailed information about developments and news about abilities. "Not good?" She asked and looked truly insecure, but Marcus smiled his brightest smile. "That is amazing, I love it." They agreed to go through the list together and discuss tactical changes.

The clan as a whole sponsored him a new set of his fancy armor, even though he had more than enough money to buy one himself. Marcus had checked his bank balance not too long ago, and found he had nearly 40 million dollars. When asked, Kou explained that a part of the earnings of the clan went to him as the clan leader. The last years had been very successful for the clan.

Last but not least Kim and his friends presented him with a data stick. Ye-jun explained to Marcus in confidence it contained all field information Sleeping Sky had gathered about monsters and ruins. Sharing it with Marcus was an incredible sign of trust, and Marcus could not stop thanking them for the amazing gift.

The party went on all day and deep into the night. When it got dark Marcus sat down on the large sofa in the common room together with Janette, Kou and Cherry and looked at the videos they had made from the fights. "To be honest Kim and his clan helped us a lot. Without them it would have taken longer and would have looked less professional," Janette said and Marcus had to agree. Even the duel with Kim was already uploaded and caused a massive uproar. But to Marcus' surprise all the videos had incredible view counts already, and endless commentary too.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

Marcus re-watched the fights one after the other and watching himself fighting was uncanny. Especially the fight against the bounty hunter made him shiver, seeing it from an outside perspective made it look even more horrific. There was one more video than he expected. "Marcus Freimann, our clan leader." He clicked on it and saw dozens of short clips of him in everyday situations. Him with a sausage in his mouth, playing with Sophon, talking with the clan next to the fire, sleeping under a tree and so on. "You filmed me in secret!" Marcus was upset and Janette shrugged her shoulders. "We wanted to show the world that you are not only the mighty Titan, but also our friend and a person. And look, the video has a massive amount of views and upvotes. People love it." He was a bit angry about the whole thing, but he was also glad that the public reacted positively.

"I'm so grateful for all you have done. Truly I'm, but in the future please do not hide important things from me. You do not have to walk on eggshells around me," Marcus said with a serious look and his friends nodded. "It was a tough decision that we all discussed. After all you have been through we wanted to protect you as much as we could," Kou said and Marcus nodded and wanted to change to something more cheerful.

"How about some of your vintage movies? Xeen has not seen them yet and I have been talking about them a lot on our journeys."

Yes please, the ones with the glow-swords would be nice. The call went out and soon more than twenty people crammed into the room, watching fantastic scifi movies from long ago. "It is the original version, not the remastered and not the super remastered or the 2.0 version." Kou said, to make that 100% clear. It was a wonderful night for Marcus, and he felt sad when he finally had to say goodbye to Kim and friends. When they walked away he saw Ye-jun and Jura holding hands, and was glad they had worked things out. The consequences of this change, Marcus would only learn in a few weeks time.

The next day had no tasks or duties, Marcus could chill all day long. Of course he started the day with a light morning training with Grace, easy two hours. He read through all the changes to the class rankings (Hawkeye and Catsith had moved under 100!) until noon. By then, Marcus had learned about the new merchandise for him and tried to catch Janette to strangle her. As it turned out, there were two lines of merch. The "iron" line had heroic and powerful pictures of Marcus and some strong sentences like "Titans endure." on shirts or "Give me all you got, I can take it." for coffee mugs.

The problem was the second line, the "hot" line, which mainly showed Marcus without a shirt and even with half his clothes ripped off. That stuff came on pillows, posters and digital art, and sold even better than the iron line. "YOU DEMON!" Marcus hunted Janette but she was far too fast and shouted back to him. "The sells alone can keep the lights on for the whole clan. See it as a sacrifice for the greater good." To calm Marcus down, Kou promised him that he and Achara were looking over all merch to ensure nothing too extreme was published. In the end Marcus had to give in but worried most what Azaa would say if she ever found out. "I already sent her the whole package." Janette said with a wide grin and ready to start running again. Marcus wanted to die.

On the next day he left to visit Azaa and to get the ritual done. All the way to the ginghi he worried about Azaa's reaction and he had to endure fans. By the time he landed in London he was out of all the materials he had brought for fans and contemplated if he had to stop using public transport from now on. How things could have changed this quickly was beyond him. The one thing that raised his mood was the screenshot Janette sent him before he walked through the portal. It showed a new ranking list: Titan rank 23 (provisional). He no longer had the lowest ranked class in the world.

When Marcus finally reached Mihr Jhel in the early morning he was greeted by an awkward Azaa and put Xeen on mute right away. She met him near the gates and was uncharacteristically silent, took him by the hand and guided him directly to her home. As soon as the door closed behind them Marcus found himself pushed to the floor and Azaa upon him, her eyes were dangerous and she flashed her teeth.

"How could you show your body like this! All those human women can look at you and lust for you!" Her expression was a mix of anger and worry. Marcus tried to formulate a defense, but he could see her expression quickly change. Anger melted away and showed something else, "Don't show your body to other women, show it only to me," she said and now she looked tearful. Marcus pulled her in and eased her anxiety with a lot of kisses and gentle touching.

After she had marked him twice more with her teeth she got up, but did not let go of his hand. "We will discuss this more, for now we have to concentrate on the ritual." It was hard to worry about that when all Marcus could think of was the vibrant body under her clothes. But he had to focus, no matter what. Healing her father was of highest priority to the ginghi and Azaa. With great effort, Marcus fought his basic instincts down and concentrated on the procedure ahead.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.