"Okay, so what's the plan?" Sera asked once they were in the suite and all distractions had been dispensed with.

  "Level," Beth replied with a shrug. "There's some exploring I want to do, but I don't want us to be two hundred to do it. We'll try to get Neph through one or even two rebirths while we're going as well."

  "Where at?" Blood asked, referencing the exploration.

  "Let me keep my secrets for now," Beth replied with a grin. "Let's just focus on leveling."

  That was precisely what they did for the next couple weeks, using the same pattern that they had used for Zack. Neph had already made some nice gains, and Beth opened the gate with the lowest level beasts at one hundred thirty to allow her to continue farming. The other three would run out, and out, and out, sprinting for a couple hours until they were at an area with beasts well over level two hundred. They would then spend days and days killing, barely even resting, slowly working on increasing their levels. The three were working towards their fifth rebirth, but Beth didn't want them to push that far, necessarily. They just should get to two hundred fifty if they could.

  They did this cycle a couple times, eating up a few weeks of objective time, turning the weather on Earth from winter to spring, though it was a cold one. Beth had them relax and take a few days off, checking their progress when they relaxed. She was happy to see that Neph was working just as hard, if not harder, than them, though it would still be a long time for her to catch up, even considering she was leveling faster than they were.

  Beth had made the biggest gains by far out of all of them, if only in pushing multiple skills into Gold, including her eye power at last. The other thing that she saw, with some shock, was Blood's current stats. The wolf was, doing a little math in her head quickly, getting a whopping forty stat points per level. In the two hundred and thirty-nine levels they had gotten since their last rebirths, she had now gotten more than nine thousand stat points. It looked like, until Beth's class evolved, Blood would start throwing her far behind in terms of raw stat numbers.

  Otherwise, they had all made quite a nice bit of coin from their farming runs, even Neph having acquired some platinum from her efforts. While it was a good bit of money, they didn't get any rare or valuable materials or resources, so the gains were still limited. On the other hand, they didn't have anything they needed to buy, and at this point, spending a few silvers a day on their room and food was nothing. They took a full day and night to rest, during which time Beth was on her communicator a bit, which the others didn't even realize.

  They did realize that what Beth had teased about was happening when there was a knocking on the door the next morning and Beth quickly answered it. Beth opened the door to reveal Andrea, who immediately jumped across the threshold and hugged her. Laughing, Beth shut the door and brought the short girl over to the couch, introducing her to the new members of the group.

  "Seriously? You're dating a dragon now?" Andrea asked, sitting next to them on the couch.

  "Yeah, and it's amazing," Beth gushed, more vibrant than Andrea had seen her yet.

  "Well, just from looking, you two seem like a cute couple," Andrea said.

  "We get that a lot, so it must be true," Beth said with another laugh. "But anyway, how are you? What's been happening?"

  "Just did a rebirth," Andrea said, examining her hand and flicking her fingers, pretending it was no big deal.

  "Number four?" Beth asked.

  "That's right," Andrea said with a grin. "Though, I do need to get some levels, now. I was hoping I could get some help there? Maybe?"

  "Sure, though we might not be joining you. We just did a bunch of that. I think the rest are ready to rebel," Beth said.

  "I could fight more," Sera said with a shrug, Beth taking note of where Andrea's eyes flew and stuck when she did that.

  "Speak for yourself," Blood grumbled, having only raised a hand and waved when Andrea entered before returning to lying flat.

  "I could use a little break," Neph added, holding up a thumb and forefinger close together. "Just a tiny one."

  "I need to catch up a bit, anyway," Andrea said, Beth checking to see she was only level thirty.

  "You should be fine, but I can only set my gate to within a hundred levels right now. You'll have to fight one-forties to start," Beth warned.

  "Hmm, maybe I can level somewhere for a couple days first. A hundred or two extra stats would be really nice," Andrea said, frowning thoughtfully.

  "I have somewhere you can go," Beth said with a chuckle. "As long as you don't mind ants?"

  "I'll fight anything, I don't care," Andrea said with a shrug.

  "Cool," said Beth.

  "Was this the big surprise?" Blood asked.

  "Nah, just wait," Beth said, shaking her head slightly.

  "Oh, you didn't tell them?" Andrea asked.

  "Nah, I've been teasing them with it for a couple weeks," Beth answered, giggling.

  "Well, I won't spoil it," Andrea said with a giggle of her own. "But where's this place you know?"

  "I'll take you later; we've got a couple more coming this morning," Beth said with a laugh.

  They devolved into a bit of small talk after that, with Sera explaining how she met Beth. She then easily transitioned into a story about how she wound up at the Royal Rose, and Andrea wanted all the juicy details. That included all the details of what their first meeting was like, hers and Beth's, and how their relationship developed. Andrea then inquired about Sera's work at the establishment and Sera was only too happy to regale her with tales of her exploits. Beth listened in fascination, though she did belatedly realize that maybe it was more than a bit odd for her to be so interested in her girlfriend’s very, very long list of past sexual exploits.

  Sera's stories were interrupted by someone else knocking on the door, which Beth got up to answer. Their second guest of the day was Kris, the tall phoenix woman, who very demurely greeted Beth with a smile and small wave. Beth reached out and pulled Kris into the suite, shutting the door behind her and giving her a side-hug before walking her over to the couch and making the introductions. Kris greeted everyone politely and more than a bit shyly, looking at the ground after saying hello before Andrea pulled her down beside her.

  "S-so, what are we, uh, doing?" Kris asked.

  "Well, I have some things planned, but we might need to wait for some people to level up, depending on where they're at," Beth replied. "We can also just hang out for a little."

  "O-oh, okay," Kris said quietly, blushing heavily when Andrea threw an arm around her shoulders and hugged her tight.

  "Is this everyone, now?" Andrea asked then.

  "No, one more for today, then a couple people who couldn't make it right away," Beth said. "I invited Adam, too, but he said he was busy with something."

  "Yeah, that boy," Andrea scoffed, leaning back and giving Kris another squeeze. "He's got tied up in some big project with a group trying to tweak a person's Mana Physique. It's got a bunch of sponsors and the CRA is overseeing the work, so it's all above-board, but I don't know if he really understood what he was signing up for. He's gonna be on that for a couple damn years, at least."

  "They're trying to do what to people's Mana Physiques?" Sera asked with a frown.

  "So, some people have Mana Physiques that are, like, fire or water or whatever. The project he's on is trying to see if someone can change the type or aspect of their Mana Physique without creating a new one," Andrea explained.

  "Sounds like a wild goose chase," Sera grunted. "People have tried that kind of stuff before. Never's worked."

  "Well, there's a lot of money involved, so…" Andrea just said with a helpless shrug.

  "He's being paid a lot?" Beth asked with a raise brow.

  "Well, that too," Andrea said with a laugh. "But it's a big project and he signed on. He can get out of the contract, but that's expensive, and there's a possibility his Mana Physique might get better. There's also a chance he comes up with a really valuable discovery; that is his strong suit, after all."

  "His strong suit?" asked Sera.

  "Yeah, Adam isn't even at five rebirths and he's made his Mana Physique," Beth explained quickly. "Andrea calls him an 'idiot savant,' and that's only half-joking."

  "Joking about the savant part," Andrea said before they all laughed a bit.

  "And what have you been up to, Kris?" Beth asked.

  "I've been working on some of my skills, mainly," Kris said quietly. "I-I've been working on my, uh, alchemy a lot, really."

  "Alchemy?" Neph bounced up excitedly. "I like alchemy!"

  "O-oh, really? Maybe we could, uh, talk about it?" Kris said quietly.

  "Oh, yes!" Neph said, moving around the center table to sit next to Kris.

  "Who else are we waiting for?" Andrea asked, seeing that Kris was now tied up.

  "Like I said, one more person today-" Beth started before a knock interrupted her. "Probably them."

  She got up and went to the door, opening it to a wall of metal and leather, which made her laugh. That got her a sour grunt in return, and she stepped out of the way, still chuckling as Bjorn squeezed himself through the door and, considering that all the doors at the CRA were rather large, that was saying something. He looked around the suite quickly before heading over to the couch and sitting by the end, pulling out a small stool from his storage power that looked like it was made from mana steel to sit on. He sat with a grunt and started rubbing his knees, frowning a bit as he glanced around. Beth quickly introduced him, barely able to pull Neph away from pelting Kris with questions to get her to say hello.

  "Hmm, are you a giant, Bjorn?" Sera asked, leaning back against the couch.

  "Titan blood, dragon girl" he grunted.

  "Girl? How old are you?" Beth asked with a scoff.

  "Subjectively? Twenty-eight," he replied.

  "Twenty-eight? Even I'm older than you," Beth said with slightly wide eyes.

  "Why does age matter?" he asked.

  "Because you're calling people girl," Beth said with an eyeroll.

  "Sorry. Dragon lady?" he asked gruffly.

  "It's fine," Sera laughed, poking Beth in the ribs.

  "G-good to see you again," Kris said to Bjorn, getting a smile from the taciturn titan in return.

  "So, what are we doing?" Bjorn asked.

  "Leveling first," Beth said, Andrea laughing at her having to explain it over and over.

  "What do we need?" he asked.

  "In terms of level? Two-fifty," Beth answered.

  "Fine," he grunted. "What's the plan?"

  "Andrea needs some levels before we can make use of my gate," Beth explained. "We also have a couple other people coming, but they won't be here for a few days."

  "Gives us time," he grunted.

  "I'm going to take Andrea to a dungeon near here that has level selection," Beth explained. "Get her some levels before using the gate."

  "Don't need it," Bjorn said with a dismissive wave.

  "Right, then we'll head out for the day," Beth said.

  "You can just drop me off," Andrea said with a chuckle. "I don't need to looked after."

  "Then I'll take Andrea over there and drop her off and be back in a minute," Beth said, standing and stretching before leading Andrea out of the suite.

  She took Andrea to her neighborhood but they didn't bother entering, as they were there for the ant dungeon anyway. They trotted around the wall, giving it some space, Beth not wanting to spook any guards today, before crossing the large clearing behind the woodlot. Beth led Andrea through the trees at the back of the clearing and out to the old farmer's field where the ant dungeon was. This wasn't the first time she had seen it since she had been back, but she still marveled at the change from how it had been only about a year ago. It was now a series of stepped mounds arranged in a circle with ants roaming the fringes. There was now a portal at the heart of the mounds that offered the option to select the difficulty of the dungeon and teleport into the instance they had chosen.

  Beth led the way to the portal, killing a couple ants with casual slaps along the path before saying, "Here you are. You should be able to do a couple runs before it's even dinner time."

  "Yeah, no problem. Shouldn't take more than a couple days, even stopping at night, to get the levels. I'll come back to the suite tonight, unless you want us somewhere else?" Andrea asked.

  "No, that's fine, you guys can stay with us, if you want," Beth said with a grin.

  "Awesome!" Andrea exclaimed, hugging Beth and kissing her cheek. "I'll be back later."

  With that, she dove into the portal, hopping into her own private instance of the ant dungeon. Beth just shook her head slightly, grinning as she turned and trotted back to the CRA Hall. She returned to the room to find they had pulled a big chair up to next to the U-shaped couch so Bjorn could sit with them. The furniture at the CRA was strong, but the standard furniture couldn't hold up to Bjorn's size, weight, and strength.