Phong did not waste the opening.
The moment the White Tigress agreed to hear his price, he asked the question he had been carrying ever since Josh first broke the rules of what a diver should have been able to do.
"What unlocks multiclassing," Phong said, "and how did Em give Josh something like that?"
That got one small reaction from the floor bosses.
The White Tigress looked mildly annoyed that the question was practical instead of something grand, something vengeful. Mr. Zero, on the other hand, looked delighted. Horns of the Earth only watched with the same heavy stillness as before, showing his disinterest toward human bullshits.
The tigress answered.
"System Blessed beings like humans awaken multiclassing naturally at level ninety."
The word ninety landed like a one-two combo at everyone in camp Orthrus.
She went on, voice calm, as if she were discussing weather and not a privilege that no soul in the entire world had even come close to reaching it.
"When they reach that threshold, their stats surge again."
Phong's face stayed still, but Alex saw his focus sharpen. Dominic did too. Janet and the French girls recognized a few moments later.
The White Tigress let the next part drop with obvious satisfaction.
"Em was grounded by the eldest for handing a level ninety privilege to a level thirty-four child."
That told them enough.
Josh's second class had not come from his own growth.
It had been a Pillar's cheat, a broken fast-forward, a privilege wrongly given to a bastard just so he could keep up with Phong's absurdities. Yet, even with a level ninety feature, Josh was nearly killed by his garden, which felt like a pat on the head for Phong. At the same time, he realized why Em had given out those boons to Josh and Olen.
Despite the restrictions of being immobile and secrecy, Phong was too far ahead of his enemies that it would not have been a fight if they ever ended up in the wrong place of the dungeon.
Bai Hu continued.
"He will not unlock a third class at level ninety," she said. "Not from that gift. His stats will still erupt normally after a molt, but he gained no class increase from Em's stolen privilege. Only the stats."
Now Alex and Dominic really understood: Phong was already looking past the present. He had moved from White Tigress and what she had done to him and camp Orthrus, and looked toward March, toward the diver league, and to the point where Josh would once again stand across from them. Only this time it would be under lights, cameras and national attention.
If that was the battlefield coming, then Phong was already asking how to level it.
Phong found the White Tigress' word choice to be deeply concerning.
She had used "molt" to refer to how class evolved every 30 levels. She made it sound like divers were crabs or lobsters. Phong knew there was this joke about things keep evolving into crabs in biology, but he doubted that was what the White Tigress meant with her use of that word.
He stopped himself from overthinking a single word use, and did not say any of that out loud.
Phong simply turned and opened the group channel.
"Everyone at Camp Stymphalian," he said. "Take the lime-oak network. Come to Camp Orthrus."
He received a lot of confused replies.
Then the network activated, as per what the White Tigress had said. At least, the floor boss was honorable and kept her promise.
Within minutes, Jake, Jack, Joanne, Alexei, and Emma arrived through the lime-oak route and stepped into the clearing of Camp Orthrus just in time to see the impossible.
Emma stopped dead first.
Her eyes moved from the White Tigress in half-human war regalia, to the green-haired boy who could only be Horns of the Earth, and then to the man in the business suit with the familiar blond sideburns.
Recognition hit like a physical blow.
"No way."
Mr. Zero smiled at her and gave the smallest, most insulting little wave.
Emma stared.
Then the realization landed fully.
The genius behind the Diver Association, the creator of the diver app, the man who had shaped so much of modern diver infrastructure, from the generators to the signal amplifier. Him being a Pillar explained all of those cutting edge technologies that were years ahead of everyone else. He was godlike thing wearing a businessman's smile.
Emma looked deeply concerned. She was a Tannenbaum, one of the 1%, and was so used to being in control. So the thought of having her strings pulled from the shadow by a being beyond human comprehension tasted like bile for her.
Phong, meanwhile, explained the deal.
Quickly, clearly, without any flairs or drama. What Bai Hu wanted, what he asked in return. He told them of the ceasefire, the intel he gained about Josh, and the boons they would receive.
By the time he finished, the people of Camp Stymphalian were once again wearing the same expression they always wore when Phong managed to twist reality into a shape nobody sane would have predicted: shock, exhaustion, and that very specific flavor of acceptance that came from already knowing he would somehow top this later.
Jake looked around and muttered, "Every time I think I'm used to his bullshit."
"He level up his game," Joanne said.
"Violently," Jack added.
Emma was still staring at Mr. Zero with open disbelief. "You people just live like this?"
"We don't enjoy it," Dominic said.
"That is not what your history suggests."
The White Tigress, having apparently decided the human awe had lasted long enough, stood and stepped forward.
"Enough."
That silenced the camp at once.
Her gaze moved over them as she handed out her first boon to everyone but Alex. A system prompt rippled through the air like a blade sliding free.
Blessing of the War Aspect:
You receive 1 extra random stat every time you gain a level. Immediately after receiving this feature, gain stats as if you've leveled up once
An extra stat per level permanently.
And a ghost level.
Though their actual levels did not change, they gained the stats as if they had just leveled once. For level thirty and above, that meant a clean +1 across all six core stats.
The difference was immediate enough that even the people receiving it had to pause.
Jake blinked and flexed one hand, Jack rolled one shoulder and made a fist several times. Joanne's eyes widened as she felt the shift settle into her body and mind. Even Emma, who had spent enough time around power to stop acting impressed by most things, looked rattled by how simple and brutal the blessing was. It was a blessing that came with a snowball effect. The disparity of stats between them and other divers would grow proportionally the longer they survived, the further down they dived, the more level they gained.
Phong let out a slow breath.
Of course the Pillar of War gave permanent stat acceleration.
Of course she would want to manipulate them into the thrill of leveling up, diving deeper, surviving longer, killing more.
He then looked toward his garden, at the Timatoes who had started rolling out of their hiding spots and started patrolling again. He eyed their tiger-like face, and wondered if they were the boon he received from the Tigress. Not voluntarily from her of course, but now that Phong gave it some thought, the only two of his plants that showed signs of sentience were the Moletatoes and the Timatoes.
The Moletatoes were the result of his only quest, likely given out by the Sky Emperor.
The Timatoes mutated due to being exposed to the Shoemri and the White Tigress herself.
So maybe, mutation of sentience were given by a floor boss.
Phong then remember the Lime-Oak who had showed just as much awareness as the Moletatoes, yet had mutated before meeting a floor boss, and he scrapped the hypothesis for now.
While he was deep in his own thought, Bai Hu looked to Alex. Her expression changed just enough to make everyone understand this part would be different.
"You defeated Đăm Bhi," she said.
Alex already looked suspicious.
The White Tigress continued.
"So your boon is not the same."
The system struck again.
Squire of the Bai Hu
Alex closed her eyes for one second as the status settled.
The cost hit her first: Her EXP requirement to level up had permanently doubled.
Alex groaned immediately.
"Oh, come on."
But the rest of the boon followed, and Alex went from being annoyed to shocked. A new skill entered her status menu.
Bai Hu's storm: A one-point-five-meter radius with Alex as the eye of the storm. It costed mana continuously while active, but the skill could be toggled on or off at will.
Alex went still as she read through the function.
This was absurd.
Bai Hu's storm was exactly what she needed: defense, or more precisely, area denial. With this skill active Alex could become untouchable in the space immediately around her unless someone could either overpower the storm or outlast her mana.
It was exactly the kind of skill an avatar of War like Bai Hu would love.
Alex groaned again, but this time it was more conflicted.
"I hate the exp penalty."
Emma, already thinking ahead, said, "But you love the skill."
Alex did not deny it.
Phong looked at her status, then at the White Tigress, then groaned with deep personal offense.
"Of course," he muttered. "Of course the Pillar of War wants to double Alex's future body count."
Mr. Zero laughed outright at that.
Bai Hu only smiled.
The Pillars decided to stay for dinner.
Bai Hu said it with the calm certainty of someone who thought the matter required no permission.
"Because today is New Year's Eve."
Little Yama only shrugged in his chubby boy form and said he did not care where he took a nap as long as nobody bothered him too much. Mr. Zero smiled, adjusted his sunglasses, and added, "I miss the food at the Red Lantern."
That name alone made Phong pause.
It was the name of his aunt and uncle's restaurant. And Mr. Zero just said it like he was one of their regulars. Yet, Phong swore he had never saw someone which such a noticeable side burns before in his life. Then, he simply shrugged. At this point, Phong was too tired to be surprised by how invasive godlike beings could be.
So, he did the sensible thing and decided that feeding three Pillars was still better than provoking three Pillars.
He turned toward the frozen lime-oak clone, clearly planning to use the connection back to Camp Stymphalian and start hauling what he needed from the storage room. He got maybe two steps before Emma, Jake, Jack, and Joanne all moved at once.
They stopped him so fast that Phong slowed on instinct and narrowed his eyes.
Emma coughed into one fist.
"Actually," she said, in the voice of a woman trying very hard to sound natural and failing, "you should probably stay here and focus on prep."
Phong stared at her.
Jake nodded way too quickly. "Yeah. Prep."
Jack crossed his arms, which in his case looked less guilty than the others but only because he was playing the "strong, silent type" and didn't say anything.
Joanne smiled in a way that screamed cover-up. "Important dinner. Three Pillars. Standards, you know."
Emma recovered enough to keep going.
"We'll go back and get the elves and the animals," she said. "A feast served to three Pillars of the dungeon shouldn't be taken lightly."
That part, unfortunately, was reasonable.
Which only made Phong more suspicious.
He squinted, then looked at Alex.
"Come with them."
Emma's face changed a little because of that, which didn't help her case at all.
Phong kept his eyes on her and added, "See what they've done to Camp Stymphalian while I was trapped on Floor 2."
Now even Jake winced.
"And," Phong said, still not looking away from the guilty party, "bring me the ears, the skins, and the sausage paste I made in the freezer."
Alex's mouth twitched in the same way Emma would look when she decided chaos was on the menu. Because now Alex knew for certain something was wrong too.
"Sure," she said.
She went with them.
Phong watched the group disappear into the lime-oak connection with the calm expression of a man already drafting charges in his head.
Bai Hu, still wearing his aunt's face in a way he refused to emotionally process, looked deeply entertained.
Phong spent the next stretch setting up what he could without them. Stock, broth base, work surfaces, those mundane and boring things that were once more common than diving into a global size dungeon and fighting with monsters. The lizardmen nearby, to their great credit, chose not to comment on the fact that the farmer preparing dinner for three Pillars looked like he had one wrong answer between him and homicide.
When the group came back, Alex was laughing way too hard for his liking. That alone told Phong everything he needed to know about the scale of the stupidity.
Behind her came Emma, Alexei, Jack, Jake, and Joanne.
They looked like guilty students who had just been marched back into the room by the headmistress after getting caught vandalizing school property.
Alexei was trying for dignity and failing.
Jake was trying for indifference and failing too.
Emma was the only one who was composed and measured enough, despite knowing fully what kind of disaster was waiting ahead of her.
Then Rico came in behind them, trying far too hard to look innocent. Which meant he was either the mastermind behind the nonsense Phong was about to hear about, or guilty in at least three separate ways.
Nyx and Bruno followed too, both very carefully avoiding Phong's gaze.
That was even worse. Because Bruno only avoided eye contact when he knew he was in trouble, while Nyx only did so when she had either committed a crime or chosen not to stop one out of personal principle.
The elves hit him before he could ask anything.
They swarmed him like a flood of excited chaos, grabbing his clothes, his sleeves, his hands, practically shrieking "Daddy!" into both ears at once. Phong looked over to the chubby boy - Horns of The Earth - to see how the Pillar of Life would react. Having the elves calling him "daddy" in front of their creator was an... exciting experience indeed...
Then the elves started talking over one another, and all of his other thoughts were drown by their voices.
"Daddy!"
"Fire chickens!"
"There are chickens!"
"Fire breathing chickens!"
"One pecked uncle Rico!"
"Uncle Rico deserved it!"
Phong went still.
Very still.
He slowly raised his eyes over the children's heads and looked at the returning group.
Alex was leaning against the lime-oak and trying to breathe through laughter.
Emma had given up pretending this was normal and was just watching with dangerous interest.
Jake looked down at the ground like it might save him.
Joanne pressed her lips together so hard it almost counted as self-harm.
Alexei, under the full weight of Phong's stare, finally said weakly, "I can explain."
Rico immediately tried to hide behind him.
That only made the whole scene more incriminating.
Because if there was a problem involving chickens, the most likely culprit was Alexei.
And if there was a problem involving anything at all, the most likely culprit was Rico.
Phong looked at both of them.
Then at Nyx.
Then Bruno.
Then back to Alex, who was still laughing too hard to be useful.
The elves kept tugging at him and chanting about fire breathing chickens like this was the best thing that had ever happened to camp.
Phong closed his eyes for one second, as if that would make the stupidity the raccoon and a certain Russian - Cuban had committed disappeared.