Limitless Path

Beth wasn't really impressed by these new enemies, and Blood seemed to agree, giving the goblin a sniff before wrinkling her large nose and moving on. The two of them continued outward before fighting groups of level twenty-fives, pushing out into the level twenty-sixes. They fought for hours before taking over an hour to rest and meditate, restoring some mana and a little stamina. They continued the grind all the way until they themselves hit level twenty-six, taking several more hours before they were a little too tired to continued. They decided to head back out of the area after resting a few minutes, Beth feeling a little extra tired from repeated uses of the Ancient World Gate power.

They passed by the areas still containing lower leveled enemies and emerged back in the room shortly thereafter. Beth immediately closed the portal, and the two once again moved into the bath, Beth stripping down before they showered off. She put on her last fresh pair of new clothes, making her poke around for a minute to see if there was some way to wash clothes in the room. It didn't appear there was, so she added that to the list of things to ask either Jaq or one of the other enforcers.

It was evening time now, but not too late into the night, and besides, Beth had never seen anything that indicated the commissary was open only during some specific hours. She led the way down the halls, making for the elevators first before walking over to the shop, finding it empty as usual. She walked up and leaned against the counter as she waited, Blood not interested in giving everything inside another sniff today.

It wasn't long before Jaq emerged from the right-hand door, giving her a particular stare as he walked opposite her behind the main counter. He was looking crisp and fully rested, as always, and it made Beth wonder if someone at his level and power even slept anymore.

"Yes?" he asked after the silence stretched a few moments.

"Hey, do you even sleep?" she blurted.

"A slightly rude question, but yes, I do sleep," he replied with a small frown. "I take three or four hours of rest once a week," he continued a little primly.

"Oh, OK. Sorry, I've just had to rest less, and seeing how you and the others are all high level, I got curious," she replied, lifting her right hand to start tapping at her chin.

"Is that what you came in here for?" he asked a little crossly.

"No. Or, well, I have a question for you," Beth said to him.

"Right, and I'm sure I have an unsatisfactory answer stashed around here somewhere," Jaq responded, face stoic.

"Right, sure. Do you have any boots kinda like these gauntlets, but with the heavy plating only on the front? And maybe a blade on the kneecap?" she asked, waving her right gauntlet at him to emphasize her point.

"What you're talking about is a custom order. I can't secure you something like that, at least, not right now," he replied with a small frown.

"So, you don't have anything like that? Or can't make it?" she asked, a little depressed.

"Well, I specialize in Engineering, so I couldn't make something like that. I could make mechanized armor-"

"Like power armor?!" Beth interjected excitedly.

Jaq sighed before continuing, "Yes, like power armor. I could make you a set of boots that didn't link to a full loadout, ones with their own internal power syncs. But the simplest set I could make would cost you forty gold. I could make you one boot for twenty."

"What the hell would I do with a single power armor boot, Jaq?" Beth asked, frowning and crossing her arms over her chest.

"I don't know, kick people?" he replied acerbically.

"You know, your customer service stinks."

"I run a commissary, not a daycare," he retorted, scrunching his brow while hitting her with a glare.

"So do you have any better boots?" she asked, beginning to get exasperated.

"Give me a minute," he replied before disappearing into the middle door.

He returned a moment later with two pairs of boots in his hands, setting both on the counter in front of them. They were of two somewhat different designs, and he simply allowed Beth to inspect both of them before discussing them. The first pair he had brought were very similar to her gloves, and she imagined it might have even been the same apprentice or perhaps journeyman smith that made them. They were a little oversized for her, Beth wondering if Jaq simply had nothing in her size. She commented as much to him as she set them back down.

"The type of make of those full plate boots is designed for you to wear boots underneath. That or good shoes and thick socks," he replied, pointing out how the spacing of the boots was basically designed with room in certain places to accommodate a leather boot inside.

"Oh, I see. But there's not enough room for the leather boots I have with the scale armoring now, so I'd have to buy a pair of boots too," she replied, her finger tapping away at her chin.

"Right, but this is the nature of a lot of heavy armor. What you're wearing right now is medium or even light armor, by some definitions. With most heavy plate armor, it's expected that you wear not just clothes, but often a padded suit underneath. These would be something like a gambeson, which is a padded jacket, for the torso, and quilted or padded pants for the legs," he explained, something Beth actually wasn't super familiar with. Most video games and even fantasy novels tended to skip the padded armor layer, just having the player character or hero wearing plate armor over their clothes.

Beth picked the other set of boots up and examined them. The design was almost entirely different, as these were an actual pair of heavy leather boots that had then been modified. The smith that created them had somehow welded, not stitched, heavy plates of a dark metal armor over the entire boot. The heel had a very short spike sticking out parallel to the ground about half-an-inch from the base of the boots. Beth rather liked the look and was happy with the idea that the boot was a whole piece. If she bought and used these, she wouldn't also have to keep track of a separate pair of leather boots or shoes.

"How much are these ones based around the leather boot?" she asked.

"One gold for the pair," he replied calmly.

"Wow, I cannot afford that," she replied, a little disheartened. "What about the other pair?"

"Sixty silver."

"Wow, I cannot afford that," she said again, causing Jaq's eyes to narrow.

"Well, when you can afford to buy something, you can come back," he said calmly.

"Can I at least get some more sets of clothes?" she asked.

"How many?"

"I don't know, five?"

"Hold on," he said, pressing something on the wall. There was noise for a moment while he picked up the boots and walked down the counter, leaning down to place them under the end of said counter. There was a light thump, and Jaq returned to open a panel in the wall and pull out a stack of clothes. "Two silvers," he said.

Beth made the coins appear and set them on the counter, Jaq making them disappear even quicker. He handed the clothes to Beth, who nodded before asking, "Oh, uh, by the way, is there somewhere to wash clothes around here?"

"Closest down here is basement level three, room thirty," he replied calmly. "The better suites have those facilities included."

"Right. Well, thanks Jaq," she responded, taking the clothes and heading out of the commissary.

She made her way back up to the room with Blood in tow, setting her new clothes on the top of the dresser in the bedroom. She made sure the dirty clothes were in her pouch before heading out to find the laundry, Blood again following along behind. It didn't take long at all to find the laundry area, Beth becoming increasingly familiar with the CRA Hall layout and numbering.

The room was fairly large, at least forty feet deep, and contained a large series of machines that looked similar to washers and dryers. Beth walked over to one of the washers and tossed her clothes in, closing the machine and examining the control panel. There was a line of text that said to hold up a key and, not knowing what else it could mean, Beth held her room key up to the panel. The was a beep noise, the door locked, and then the machine had a second panel light up. It had several different options, and Beth simply pressed the 'Regular Wash' option. The machine started running and displayed a timer of ten minutes. Beth supposed it had a reserve of detergent or something within, and she decided to just wait the few minutes for the clothes to be finished.

Once the machine was finished, she opened the door and took out the clothes, which were barely damp and smelled rather nice, and moved them into a dryer. She repeated the same process, and the machine started up, displaying an estimated time of only two minutes. It was barely enough time for her to do anything, so she simply petted Blood for a minute until the machine pinged. Once the machine was done, she pulled the clothes out, finding them to be warm but not hot. She tucked the two sets of clothes into her pouch and left the room, wondering if she had been billed for using the service.

Back in the suite, she and Blood sprawled out together on the couch, with Beth grabbing a remote off one of the end tables and fiddling with it. The power button was pretty obvious, and pressing it turned the screen on the wall opposite the bathroom on. The screen didn’t display a random program but had something more similar to a phone or tablet, showing a list of channels and applications. Beth paged around and selected something that said Combat History Viewer, which opened to display a large list. The list contained recorded combat matches from various places throughout the Milky Way. Browsing through the listings, she picked one at random, not really drawn to anything on the first part of the list.

The screen changed to show an arena set up in a standard configuration, a plain white floor with markers for the participants and a center line. On one end of the arena was a tall man in dark clothes with two swords at his waist. He looked like a regular human, with dusky skin and black hair, but his eyes glowed orange and red, something Beth was already starting to get used to. Across from him was what Beth could only describe as an angel, a woman wearing gold and white with two sets of white feathered wings extending from her back. She wielded a giant silver claymore and stood in a ready stance, waiting for the match to be started.

The referee, an elf, tall even for his species, stood outside the arena in a small zone to the side. He gestured to first one fighter and then the other, the man and the angel bowing in turn in response. The ref then brought his hands together before holding his left hand high above his head, both fighters readying themselves in that moment, their grips tightening on their weapons, eyes narrowing slightly. The screen above the arena beeped twice, blinking an orange color, and then the ref slashed his arm downward, the screen blinking green.

The two fighters both exploded forward, crossing the distance in a single eyeblink. They met in the middle of the arena, a shimmering greatsword and two long, gleaming blades slamming into each other right above the center line. Beth couldn't follow them at all, their speed simply too fast for her to even see. Even so, there was something mesmerizing about the clash of blades to Beth. She watched in rapt attention, trying to figure out what was happening on the screen across from her.

The fight continued for fifteen or twenty seconds, the blades of the fighters nothing but blurs on the screen. The angel apparently did something, though Beth didn't see her doing anything apart from rapidly swinging her blade. A series of glowing replicas of the angel's greatsword appeared around the contestants, hovering in the air at chest height, all pointing at the human. Another blink and the swords all slammed into the human; except they didn't. Where he had been was only a shadow, from which extended blurry lines, lines that connected to the human standing behind and to the right of the angel.

The glowing swords hadn't disappeared after the first attack, and they turned in the air before shooting towards the man again. The man was standing in the paths of the blades, when suddenly he wasn't. He was in another part of the arena, to the side of the angel, swinging both blades at her back. She reacted quickly, blocking the strikes and returning a strike of her own. The action became more frenetic, the two exchanging rapid blows while the sword images moved into the melee, swinging at the man in coordination with the angel's strikes. The man was extremely elusive, however, and seemed to disappear and reappear whenever and wherever he wanted.

The chaotic melee stopped abruptly, the angel dropping her blade and reaching for the man's arms, his swords buried nearly to the hilt in the armpit joints of her armor. As her hands were about to close on his wrists he suddenly moved, jerking the swords free at the same time as he warped backwards, combining the motions into a smooth flow. The ref raised his left arm, the one by the position where the human had started and called out the red side as a winner. The angel had collapsed to her knees, starting to topple forward, but jerked upright after the ref's call. Standing back up, it looked like she was possibly still in pain, but it was very clear that the fatal wounds were no longer that.

Beth was still sprawled on the couch, but she was also quite excited. This was the kind of thing that she wanted, the kind of speed and strength that was so great even her slightly enhanced senses couldn't perceive what was happening. She fiddled with the remote for a minute and was able to pull up match information, which showed that both the man and the angel were Awoken, which meant they were at less than five rebirths. They were both, in fact, just past their second rebirths, labeled as rebirth three level forty. This kind of speed and strength was something that was possible to achieve in three rebirths, something that was rather surprising to her.