Zarin hadn't seen Ais since the day he fought the Dark Knight, but he had a feeling she would show up soon.
"I had a busy schedule lately," she told him as her face got filled with sadness for a moment.
Zarin's hand moved by itself and patted her head like she was a pet. She didn't seem to mind it, and actually, a smile appeared on her face.
"Here… have some of the meat," Zarin said somewhat awkwardly as he didn't expect that action of his to bring that kind of reaction that fast.
The Ais' hand moved faster than Zarin could keep up with, and the small part of the meat he was cooking was in her mouth in a split second.
"Needs some sauce," she added as she finished munching the meat.
"Well, out here, it is difficult to make some, so unless you have…" but he got interrupted at the middle of his sentence as Ais snapped her fingers. A bottle appeared from nowhere in front of her.
She grabbed it before it would fall to the ground and turned it to let out what it contained on another piece of meat that Zarin had cooked. Zarin hadn't noticed even when she started her move to go to grab that piece.
A red sauce was added to the meat, and Zarin could tell by its smell that it was some kind of barbecue sauce.
"Can I have some?" he asked with his mouth full of saliva, as it had been a long time since he had something like that. Lady Emlyn's food never had any kind of sauces, but the treatment of the meat was truly outstanding. She was bringing out its flavor as much as possible with no outside factors except for some seasoning.
Ais gave him another piece of meat she had taken and the bottle to add as much sauce as he wanted.
As they finished their meal, Ais snapped her fingers once more, and the bottle of sauce disappeared as fast as it appeared.
"Your cooking was decent. Next time though, may get something more tender."
Zarin rolled his eyes but didn't give a response to the comment.
"I need to ask you a few things."
Zarin told her about everything he had learned these past weeks, both through his training and the Journal. The last thing he told her was his re-spawn ability. He wanted to see if she had heard of any similar abilities other classes may have.
"You can do what?" was her reaction when he finished his explanation of the ability.
"Is it something rare to happen?"
In the Journal, there was no mention of a similar ability that Lady Emlyn's father had encountered or was able to earn himself. But even if it wasn't mentioned there, it didn't mean tone didn't exist.
After all, his [Knowledge-Otherworlders] reached just 25% out of it, meaning there were many more to learn that maybe even Lady Emlyn's father didn't know. He didn't mention him earning that Knowledge as something in him had warned him against doing so. He wasn't sure why, but it was like a gut feeling he couldn't ignore.
"I…I had heard of 'Chose Ones' that had that type of ability unlocked, but that happened later in their journey. Starting with one is something unheard of. It seems like being a Dice Master is truly not that simple."
Hearing that raised the Zarin's spirit. When he first earned that class, he wasn't too fan of it since he didn't know what he could do. But, even if he still was low level and hadn't made huge progress, he understood that his class wasn't that simple.
He could, after all, make an item that could make summon a person at least up to B-Rank. Even if he couldn't make the item himself, he was confident that it won't be like that always. He was optimistic that either his [Dice Summoning] would be able to do something similar at a point, maybe when it would be a Master Skill.
It could also be the case that he needed to learn a new skill to craft those special dice, but he was still a beginner trying to earn something that powerful.
"You may actually have a chance," Ais said with her hand under her chin, as she was in deep thought.
"Chance? Chance for what?"
Zarin was worried about the following sentence of Ais. He had thought that there was actually a great evil he had to fight that Ais had forgotten to tell him about.
"Eh? About the tournament, of course? It isn't decided yet when it will be, though."
Zarin let out a sigh as he relaxed after hearing that. He knew about what she was speaking about through the Journal.
Apparently, an event was happening when there were many new Otherworlders. The event was a tournament where those people could fight each other and exchange pointers between them. Some older Otherworlders would also be there to take a look at the fights and some figures from the afterlife.
Emlyn's father had taken part in the tournament. However, he didn't go too far because it happened when he was still early in his development. If it was a couple of years later, he was confident of reaching the top 3.
Still, since Otherworlders were picked at a random time when the tournament happened, the participants varied on the time they had developed their abilities. For one to take part in the fights, they just had to not be part of the last one, and there was no option to not take part. You could give up in any fight, including the first one, but people tried to go as further as possible because of the rewards.
The rewards weren't shown until the day that they were given, and it looked like they were designed for the person that earned them. The top 10 would get a reward, with 10th to 5th to get a D-Rank Item.
The person was had the 4th place would get a C-Rank Item. The 3rd place would earn the person a B-Rank Item, and the 2nd place got an A-Rank Item.
The first place also got an A-Rank Item, but they had the chance to take a challenge that would earn them an S-Rank Skill if they won.
Even if both 1st and 2nd places rewarded an A-Rank Item, the chance to earn an S-Rank Skill was more critical. Items were consumable, but one could use Skill as many times as they wanted, limited only by its cooldown.
Of course, there was the chance of earning a Passive Skill, which was even more potent as its effect would always be active.
S-Rank skills couldn't be leveled up, as they were already challenging enough to earn one. Lady Emlyn's father had been alive for close to five decades and had never succeeded in earning an S-Class Skill. At least he never mentioned succeeding in gaining one in his Journal.
"How soon do you think it may be? How many Otherworlders are needed to get picked?"
Ais eyes got wide with a surprise by his response.
"You have earned quite a bit from that book, haven't you?" she remarked.
"Only one is remained to get picked, but rumors are that it should happen in less than half a year. After that, two weeks or so would take to deal with the details of the tournament."
Zarin went into deep thought. Half a year wasn't that long, especially if his progress continued at his current rate.
"Do you know anything about the rest of the Otherworlders? At least how long ago has the oldest one been around?"
Since the tournament happened after a few weeks since the last Otherworlder had joined their world, the ones picked earlier had a clear advantage since they had more time to prepare.
Zarin had leveled up a couple of times, reaching level 9 by killing a little over a dozen of Demon Wolves this past month. After upgrading them, he used some of his stats points to check the difference in them.
His status was currently like that.
____________________
ZARIN (LVL 9 DICE MASTER)
Race: Human
Exp: 608/900
HP: 80/80
SP: 80/80
MP: 0/100
STATS
Power: 12
Agility: 14
Mind: 12
Defense: 15
Endurance: 16
Luck: 100
Unused stats points: 5
SKILLS
Dice Summoning (D-Rank - Lvl 42/100)
Dice Manipulation (D-Rank - Lvl 32/100)
Sword Mastery (D-Rank - Lvl 34/100)
Pain Tolerance (B-Rank - Lvl 1/20)
SPECIAL DICE
None
____________________
Kester's die didn't count as one of his special dice since it was a reward from a Quest. However, this confirmed Zarin's thoughts that he would be able to create dice like that in the future himself. Most likely, the blueprints of those dices will be counted as Special Dice or just the results.
Lady Emlyn's father didn't have any similar abilities. Still, he had encountered some people who had skills that allowed them to create items. None sounded close to what Kester's die was, but Zarin was confident that it should be the case for his class.
"So is that why you came? To let me know about the tournament?" Zarin asked as he noticed that Ais acted like she didn't hear his last question.
"Partly for that. I also wanted to give you a gift."
Zarin's guard was raised the moment she mentioned a gift. Her last gift wasn't something he wanted, even if he didn't know if or how many times she used it. He tried to pay attention to any signs that he was spied on, but he had no indication till today.
Ais similarly opened her palm when she summoned the sauce button, but a small pouch came out this time.
She lightly threw the pouch toward Zarin for him to catch it, but he sidestepped to let it hit the ground instead.
The pouch had a cord that kept its containments from getting out, but the fall was enough to relax it and for Zarin to see what was in it.
Zarin's eyes went wide as he saw what was in the pouch. It had a pair of 20-sided dice.